V 

s 

















,0 






<^ 









' 






<V 



"•V 



'- 


















/■ / 



b o x 















** 









lU 



•V 









% . 









,0o. 



'♦V 















^ <» 
^ «* 



^0 



r o^ 



;\. y 









o o v 






























> -^ 



■ 



v* V <V 










0<y 






^ln <\ 



*? 






%* 



\V V ' j 



^ 















v* 






?** 



J%> 









X 



vY- 



o 5 A 









"■cT- 



-^ 






'\ 



-O -.V 









4 ,A X 




























V' ,^ 






%■ 



; V'-l 

::■> 









v\V 



S 



'++ 



+4 







. 



WILLIAM CAESTAEE8: 



% Character antr Career 



OF 



THE BEVOLUTIONARY EPOCH, 

(1649-1715.) 



BY 



/ 



ROBERT HERBERT STORY, 



MINISTER OF ROSNEATH. 







*V 



"Res gestas majorum nostrorum a fabularum vanitate liberare, et ah oblivionis 
injuria vindicare." — Geo. Buchanan, History, Booh I. 






con eg 



try 



flrw».sH'^' 



^ 



iffi 



Hondo n: 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1874. 



TO 

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE' PRINCESS LOUISE, 

MARCHIONESS OF LORNE. 

Madam, 

In dedicating this volume to your Royal Highness, 
I venture to hope that you will recognise, in the history 
which it traces, two claims to your Royal Highness's consi- 
deration. . 

The principles which animated Carstares, in his conflict 
with political misrule and ecclesiastical oppression, were 
identical with those which placed the Elector of Hanover 
upon the British throne. Throughout the long struggle 
which secured their ascendency, those principles found no 
more faithful champions and martyrs than the chiefs of 
the House of Argyll. 

In writing this book I have discharged a duty to a 
kinsman's memory ; in connecting it with the name of 
your Royal Highness I indulge a wish of my own, which 
your great kindness has permitted me to gratify. 

I have the honour to be, 

Madam, 

Your Royal Highness's most faithful and obedient servant, 

ROBERT HERBERT STORY. 



a 2 



" The good and great Mr. William Carstakes, high favourite 
of King William and of his Cabinet Council for Scots' affairs : 
the Jacobites and ill-affected lords for this called him the Car- 
dinal. He surely was one of the greatest clergymen ever 
embellished any Church ; often Moderator of General Assemblies ; 
full of piety and Christian charity." 

Coltness Collections, p. 78. 



PREFACE. 



By way of preface to this book, I have only to mention my 
sources of information, and to acknowledge my obligations 
to the gentlemen from whom I have received help. 

Carstares's sister Sarah married her cousin William 
Dunlop, who was my great-great-great-grandfather, on the 
mother's side. By Sarah, who possessed a mass of her 
brother's letters and papers, a large collection of these was 
bequeathed to her son Alexander, and is now the property 
of my cousin Alexander Graham Dunlop, of Gairbraid. He 
did me the favour of selecting from this collection all the 
MSS. in Carstares's handwriting or directly connected with 
his affairs, and entrusting them to me. They form the basis 
of this biography. 

Another set of papers, consisting almost wholly of letters 
addressed to Carstares, is in the possession of my aunt Mrs. 
Murray Dunlop, of Corsock ; and to this also, through her 
kindness, I have had full access. 

I found several letters of Carstares' among the MSS. of 
the University Library in Glasgow, and a few embedded in 
the unwieldy mass of the Wodrow MSS., in the Advocates' 
Library. 

Next in importance to these, and of the same value as ori- 
ginal sources, are the * State Papers ' edited by McCormick, 
to which a sketch of Carstares's life, of no great historical 
worth, is prefixed. These State Papers consist, with but one 
or two exceptions, of letters addressed to Carstares by the 
leading public men of his time. 



vin PREFACE. 



Besides these primary authorities, I have found much that 
illustrates Carstares's character and career, in the * Corre- 
spondence ' and ' Analecta ' of Wodrow ; in the ' Coltness 
Collections ' ; the ' Caldwell Papers ' ; the ' Marchmont 
Papers ' ; the ' Lockhart Papers ' ; the ' Leven and Melville 
Papers ' ; ' Fountainhall's Historical Notices,' and some of 
the minor publications of those clubs which have thrown 
the light of their valuable memoirs upon Scottish history. 
For the narrative of the general events, political and eccle- 
siastical, in which Carstares was concerned, I have had 
recourse, mainly, to the ' History of the Sufferings,' by 
Wodrow ; the ' History of his own Time,' by Burnet ; the 
admirable 'Memoirs' and Appendices, of Dalrymple ; and 
to the recent histories of Mr. Hill Burton, Dr. Cunningham, 
and Mr. Grub. The work of these three gentlemen has 
appeared to me so accurate and trustworthy that, at several 
points, I have thought it best to append to a statement in 
the text nothing more than a reference to one, or another, 
or all, of them, when recourse to their original authorities 
would be troublesome or impossible to the general reader. 

I have derived great help from the collection of pamphlets 
in the Advocates' Library (which, I may be permitted to 
remark, would be rendered much more available to the 
student by a good catalogue). 

In recording my thanks to the gentlemen who have been 
so good as to aid me in my work, I wish to name along with 
them the Very Keverend the Dean of Westminster, who — 
when it was scarce begun, and when I was inclined to doubt 
whether I should be able to accomplish it — encouraged me 
with more than one very kind expression of his interest in 
its success. To David Laing, Esq., the patriarch of Scottish 
historical research, I, in common with every one, whether 
beginner or veteran, who ventures into the field which is 
peculiarly his own, owe the heartiest thanks for advice and 
information which no one else could have supplied ; to say 



PREFACE. ix 



nothing, in my case, of the loan of books and pamphlets 
from his own library, and from that of which he is — and 
long may he be — the curator. 

I am also much indebted to Mr. Jamieson, the curator of 
the Advocates' Library ; and to the Rev. Professor Dickson 
and Professor Edward Caird, of the University of Glasgow, 
to whom I owe the privilege of unrestricted access to its rich 
and admirably arranged collection. 

Mr. Marwick, formerly town-clerk of Edinburgh, and now 
of Glasgow, was most courteous in letting me examine the 
city records, and in allowing the experts in his office to 
decipher and transcribe for me some peculiarly puzzling 
letters among the Graham Dunlop MSS. 

The Rev. William Feme, the biographer of John Car- 
stares, and who is now settled in the State of New York, is 
a descendant of Mrs. Drew, one of Carstares's sisters. A box 
full of MSS. was lost in crossing the Atlantic ; but he still 
has several letters and papers which belonged to Carstares, 
from which he has communicated to me some important 
extracts. For these, as for several of his own interesting 
letters, I beg to offer him my sincere thanks. 

To those of my own kindred, who placed at my disposal 
the documents without which I should not have attempted 
to write this book at all, I need not say my very hearty 
acknowledgments are due, and will, I know, be accepted 
without further asseveration. 

R. H. S. 

Rosneath, February 1874. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PACK 

I. Lineage — John Carstares — Cromwell — Kesolntioners and 
Protesters — The Restoration — Prelacy and Persecution — 
William Carstares at School and College 1 

] I. Intercourse with Holland — Utrecht — Introduction to the 
Prince of Orange — Political Intrigues — " Grievances of 
Scotland " — Imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle 24 

III. Imprisonment — Release in 1679 — Journey to Ireland — 

Letters from London — The Dunlops — Renewed Troubles 

— Marriage — Return to Holland 44 

IV. Plots and Plotters — Shaftesbury — Monmouth — Russell — 

Sidney — Argyll — Baillie — Great Whig Plot — Rye-house 
Plot — Ferguson — Discovery — Carstares seized ; sent to 
Scotland 61 

V. Second Imprisonment — Examination and Torture — The 

Thumbkins — Sir George Mackenzie — The Deposition . . 79 

VI. Publication of Deposition — At Stirling — Trial of Jerviswood 

— Use of Carstares's Deposition — Release — Return to 
Holland 99 

VIL Peace — Tour, and Journal 110 

VIII. Cleve — Death of Father and Mother — Leyden — Chaplain to 

William of Orange 129 

IX. Infatuated Policy of James in England — Party of the Prince of 
Orange — Affairs of Scotland — James Steuart, Carstares, and 
Fagel — The Invasion 138 

X. Farewell to Leyden — Scottish Revolution — Carstares's Posi- 
tion — Presbyterians and Episcopalians — Dundee — Eccle- 
siastical Condition of Scotland 158 

XL Dunlop — Montgomerie's Plot — Carstares in Ireland — Letters 

— Church Affairs in Scotland — General Assembly — Re- 
establishment of the old Church 179 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

XTI. Carstares's Position, Work, and Influence — With the King 

in Flanders — Letters — Grlencoe 201 

XIII. General Assembly of 1692 — Letters from Holland and 

London — Oath of Assurance — 1604 — Midnight Interview 

of Carstares and William " 222 

XIV. Correspondence — Darien Scheme — Ministerial Changes — 

Death of William 245 

XV. Queen Anne — Carstares goes to Edinburgh as Principal of 

the University — One of the Ministers of the Town .. .. 271 



XVI. The Union 28 



XVII. Calamy — Squabble between Universities of Edinburgh and 

Glasgow — Carstares and Calamy 's Visit 305 

XVIII. English Liturgy — Greenshields — Apprehensions of the 
Church — Assembly of 1711 —Deputation to London — 
Toleration and Patronage — Oath of Abjuration .. .. 315 

XIX. Assembly of 1712 — Oath of Abjuration — Assembly of 
1713 — Private History — Accession of House of Hanover 
— Deputation to London — Assembly of 1715 — Last 
Days — Death 344 



Appendix 369 

Index 381 



WILLIAM CARSTARES 



CHAPTEE I. 

Lineage — John Carstares — Cromwell — Resolutioners and Protesters — 
The Restoration — Prelacy and Persecution — William Carstares at 
school and college. 

" William had one Scottish adviser, who deserved and pos- 
sessed more influence than any of the ostensible ministers. 
This was Carstares, one of the most remarkable men of that 
age. He united great scholastic attainments with great 
aptitude for civil business, and the firm faith and ardent 
zeal of a martyr, with the shrewdness and suppleness of a 
consummate politician. In courage and fidelity he resembled 
Burnet; but he had what Burnet wanted — judgment, self- 
command, and a singular power of keeping secrets."* 

It is thus that the most recent, and most copious, historian 
of the Be volution in England describes the position and 
character of William Carstares. 

Mr. Hill Burton's sketch of him is traced in similar lines. 
" Carstares had scarcely the rhetorical and literary talents of 
his rival Burnet, but he was entirely free of that prelate's 
foppish love of consequence, and dangerous incontinence of 
tongue. He exhibited the rare phenomenon of a powerful 
churchman, who could look beyond his order, and use his 
influence not solely for the advancement of the Church, but 

* Macauiay's 'History of England/ vol. iii. chap. xiii. 



2 WILLIAM CAB ST ABES. [Chap. 

for the State too Except Bentinck, it would be diffi- 
cult to point out any one whom William so entirely esteemed 

and trusted as Carstares Carstares' integrity has 

been unquestioned ; and among the many dubious and 
treacherous men of this restless age, he remained firm and 
honest."* Other names, of less account than his, occur much 
more frequently in the books, pamphlets, and letters of the 
reigns of James VII., William, and Anne ; but, with hardly 
an exception whenever William Carstares is named in these, 
it is with the respect accorded, even by his opponents, to a 
man of acknowledged power, influence, and integrity. No 
one passes with less scathe through the controversies, slan- 
ders, scurrilities, of an age when rival factions used poisoned 
weapons, and gave no quarter. Of many references to him 
that I have discovered, almost the only one which has a 
bitter flavour, as of personal dislike, is in the spy Macky's 
" Characters of the Nobility of Scotland," where he is de- 
scribed as "a fat sanguine-coraplexioned fair man, always 
smiling where he designs most mischief." " The cunniugest 
subtle dissembler in the world."! Yet often and honourably 
as Carstares is mentioned among the political characters of 
the second half of the 17th century, the notices of him are 
so scattered and so incidental, that it is difficult to form from 
them a complete idea of his character and life. The memoir, 
which is prefixed to the ' Carstares State Papers/t is the 
only attempt that has been made to relate his history as a 
whole ; and the narrative there given, well-intentioned as it 
is, is rather confused, and lacks many details which are now 

* < History of Scotland from 1688.' J. H. Burton, vol. i. p. 30-2. 

f 'Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky:' London, 1733, 
p. 209. Swift's note appended to Macky's text is " A good character, but 
not strong enough by a fiftieth part." See annotated edition (in the 
Advocate's Library). 

% ' State Papers and Letters, addressed to William Carstares, &c, to 
which is prefixed the Life of Mr. Carstares, published from the originals 
by Joseph McCormick, D.D., Minister at Prestonpans.' Edinburgh, 1774. 
McCormick, afterwards Principal of St. Andrews, was Carstares' grand- 
nephew. 



I.] THE CARSTARES FAMILY. 3 

ascertained, though apparently unknown to the author ; nor 
is it altogether successful in giving a clear picture of the 
events of the epoch of the Revolution and of the Union, 
and of Carstares' relation to them. The principles, which 
governed the statesmen and churchmen of that epoch, are 
now better understood ; and the acts, in which those prin- 
ciples were embodied have been more thoroughly examined, 
than when the biographer of Carstares wrote. The materials 
for the construction of a memoir of his life are ampler and 
more accessible than they could then be. It seems legiti- 
mate to attempt, with these advantages, to depict anew the 
character and career of a man whose place is second to none 
in the long and honourable roll of Scottish worthies. 

In the 15th century a certain William Carstares* was a 
substantial ■ burgess of St. Andrews. In October, 1483, he 
obtained from John Lok, Canon of Brechin, a charter " of a 
tenement on the north side of the South Street of St. Andrews, 
and that in consideration of a certain sum of money paid to 
him by the said William Carstares, in his urgent necessity," 
Besides this tenement, he possessed property in the " Kirk 
Yennel" of the same city. The house in South Street was 
assigned, in 1503, to his daughter Beatrix ; and, after one or 
two other transfers, appears to have come in the year 1518 
into the hands of " Sir Henry Carstares, son and heir of 
William Carstares ;" who in his turn made it over to another 
William Carstares, " citizen of St. Andrews." This William, 
who also held " lands on the west side of the Brig of Crail," 
granted a new charter of this tenement in South Street to 
Sir William Myrtoun, Vicar of Lathrisk, on the 23rd of July, 
1521.1 

In 1573 we find Thomas Carstares, of the same family, in 
possession of New 7 Grange, near St. Andrews. He died in 

* The name was spelled, indifferently, Carstaris, Carstairs, Carstaires, 
Carstaers, and Carstares, until the subject of this memoir adopted and 
adhered to Carstares. 

t These documents are in the Charter Chest of Crail. See ' Fifiana/ by 
M. F. Conolly. Glasgow, 1869. 

B 2 



4 WILL JAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

1615, and appears to have left several children.* John Car- 
stares, who succeeded him as proprietor of New Grange, had 
a nephew and son-in-law in a certain James Carstares, 
resident in St. Andrews. 

In February, 1625, this Mr. James Carstares makes his 
will, and appoints his father-in-law, " John Carstares, mer- 
chant," and John Carstares, jun., his brother-in-law, his 
executors. John Carstares, merchant, was Provost of St. 
Andrews, as well as laird of New Grange. His son be- 
came afterwards Sir John Carstares, Knight, of Kilconquhar. 
James Carstares, who made his will in 1625, names as his 
eldest lawful son John Carstares. John was born on the 
6th of January, 1623, and inherited the Carstares blood both 
from father and mother, the latter being, as his father's will 
proves, the daughter of Carstares of New Grange. He 
married, in 1647, or 1648, Janet, fourth daughter of William 
Mure of Glanderston, in Kenfrewshire, a cadet of the family 
of Caldwell and ancestor of the present representative of 
the Mures. | Of that marriage was born, on the 11th of 
February, 1649, William Carstares, his parents' eldest son. 
They had three other sons and five daughters, of whom 
two sons and one daughter died early. 

John Carstares was a man of no small mark among the 
Scottish Churchmen of the days of the Commonwealth and 
the Persecution. He entered the University of St. Andrews 
in 1638, and studied there till the close of his curriculum, 
his teacher in theology being the learned and pious Samuel 
Rutherford. Having been for a short time parish minister 
of Cathcart, near Glasgow, — where he married, and where his 
son William was born, — he became, in 1650, minister of the 
Cathedral, or High Church, of Glasgow. His first conspi- 
cuous engagement in the public turmoils of his time was on 
the 3rd of September, 1650, at the Battle of Dunbar. He was 
there, rather unnecessarily, one should say, along with other 

* Information partly supplied by Mr. Ferric 

f ' Notices of the Life of the Rev. John Carstaires/ by Rev. Wm. Ferrie, 
A.M. Edinburgh, 1843. See pp. 3, 6, 54. 



I.] JOHN CARSTARES. 



ministers, who thronged the camp of General Leslie, and 
strove not only to stimulate the fervour, but to direct the 
tactics, of the Scottish host. Some of the warlike clergy 
were slain ; Carstares and Waugh (the minister of Borrow- 
stounness) were taken prisoners, and carried to Edinburgh.* 
Amidst the dissolution of parties and forces which followed 
the battle of Dunbar, a so-called "Western Army," number- 
ing about 5000 men, and professing Covenanting principles 
of an extreme sort, was organized by Colonel Ker and Colonel 
Strachan — well-known soldiers of the time. Cromwell kept 
his eye upon this body, with a special hope of being able to 
bring its leaders to peaceable treaty, or to consent to act 
along with him ; and he tried to come to terms of agreement 
through the intervention of his prisoners, John Carstares and 
Provost' Jaffray of Aberdeen,! who were liberated on parole 
for the purposes of this negociation. Although the " Remon- 
strance " issued by Ker and Strachan, while they awaited, at 
Dumfries, the course of events, expressed but scant loyalty 
to Charles, the " Covenanted King," its sentiments were 
nowise friendly to the " English Sectaries." Cromwell's well- 
chosen envoys effected nothing ; and his hopes of conciliation 
were disappointed. Where he could not conciliate, he must 
needs quell ; and the differences between him and the " Re- 
monstrants " being put to the arbitrament of the sword, the 
decision was, as usual in those days, in favour of the English 
invader.j After this bootless mission John Carstares re- 
turned to confinement in Edinburgh. Several of his letters 
to his wife, during his imprisonment, are extant, and may 
be read in Mr. Feme's volume ; but they are so entirely 
filled with pious reflections on the course of Providence, 
and on his own spiritual condition, and with the religious 

* Carlyle's ' Oliver Cromwell,' vol. ii. p. 41. Mr. Ferrie, in his ' Life of 
John Carstares,* misapprehends his situation at this time, and erroneously 
represents him as flying from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle and remaining 
there till its surrender. He was Cromwell's prisoner till after that time. 

t Baillie's ' Letters,' Bannatyne Club, iii. 120. 

% Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 85. 



6 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

" improvement " of his troubles, that they throw little 
light on the history of the events that were passing around 
him. 

In one dated the 4th of October, he says, " I may cry out 
' Woe is me, my leanness ! my leanness !' It's a wonder to me, 
at least it may be, how it has not been obvious and palpable 
— feasible to all his people, standing by and looking on, that 
my nakedness has not been long ere now discovered ; that the 
peinture upon this tomb has not been rubbed off, and the 
rottenness within seen ; that the vizorme and cover has not 
been pulled off this face, which has long, even very long, 
deceived a world. . . . What have I done — as a husband — a 
father and head of a family ? What as a minister, a pastor, 
a watchman, a steward, a servant of Jesus Christ, a friend of 
the Bridegroom ? What as a member of judicatories ? . . . 
It cannot be told how empty and worn in all these I have 
been."* Again, he writes on the 24th of December, on the 
very day on which the Castle was surrendered by Colonel 
Walter Dundas ; and the only reference he makes to external 
circumstances does not extend, although the letter is a long 
one, beyond two short sentences : " I am somewhat weary of 
this place. ... I have as yet made no application to these 
men for liberty, but purpose to do so shortly."! And yet we 
know that he was personally concerned in the negociations 
for the surrender. On the 14th of December, Cromwell wrote 
to the Governor of the Castle : " If you please to name any 
you would speak with, now in Town, they shall have liberty 
to come and speak with you for one hour;" and Dundas 
asks that Provost Jaffray and Mr. Carstares should be sent 
to him. They, in their turn, write a note which Cromwell 
forwards, wherein they decline the conference : " In such 
an important trust we dare not," they say, " take upon us 
to meddle." How the capitulation was managed without 
their help may be read in the pages of Mr. Carlyle.J: After 
a lenient captivity (for he tells his wife in another undated 
letter that he is like to forget he is a prisoner through the 

* Feme, p. 63. f Ibid. p. 72. % Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 91-2. 



I.] JOHN CARSTARES. 7 

" abundant ease of his accommodation," and that he has 
liberty to walk abroad),* he was exchanged, along with 
Waugh and Jaffray, for some prisoners in Leslie's hands; 
and returned to Glasgow, where his wife awaited him with 
her son, and with a daughter that had been born during his 
imprisonment. 

"Here," says his biographer, "he began to preach against the 
times." The meaning of this phrase is only too notoriously 
illustrated in the records that remain of many of the preach- 
ings in those confused and excited days. The ministers con- 
stantly thundered from their pulpits against the backslidiDgs 
of the party to which they were opposed, or of the person 
who happened to be obnoxious to them.t Baillie tells us 
how General Leslie, amidst " the shame and discouragement " 
of his overthrow at Dunbar, was " irritate with Mr. James 
Guthrie's public invectives against him from the pulpit." | 
When Cromwell and his troopers came to Glasgow in October, 
1650, at the time of the Ker and Strachan Kemonstrance, 
and went soberly to church, " Mr. Zachary Boyd railed on 
them all to their face "§ from the pulpit of the Cathedral. 
On the great sectary's next visit, in April, 1651, he again 
betook himself to church both in the forenoon and afternoon, 
and had from Mr. Kobert Bamsay "a very good honest 
sermon, pertinent for his case ;" and heard Mr. John Carstares 
lecture, and Mr. James Durham (his colleague), "preach 
graciously and well to the times, as could have been desired."§ 
" Generally all who preached that day in the town gave a 
fair enough testimony against the sectaries." || "Bearing 
testimony " supplanted the simple gospel in those days ; and 
the clergy's influence too often tended rather to intensify the 

* Feme, Letters vii. and viii. 

t " In their sermons, and chiefly in their prayers, all that passed in the 
state was canvassed : men were as good as named, and either recommended 
or complained of to Grod, as they were acceptable or odious to them. . . . 
The pulpit was a scene of news and passion." ' Burnet's History of his 
own Time.' Oxford (2nd) edition, vol. i. p. 60. 

% Baillie's ' Letters,' Bannatyne Club, vol. iii. p. 111. 

§ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 119. || Ibid. vol. iii. p. 165, 



o WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

divisive fervour of contention, than to promote moderation 
and wise forbearance. Profound personal piety of the God- 
fearing and self-condemning sort, such as marked strongly the 
character of John Carstares, seemed to be in nowise incom- 
patible with the keenest partizanship, and an extreme con- 
tentiousness of spirit. That this piety in his case was deep 
and sincere no one who reads the letters published by Feme 
can doubt. His " savouriness and the exceeding grace of 
God in him ;" his wonderful power in prayer ; * his strange 
prophetic " rapture " in preaching — are all borne witness to 
with admiration by his contemporaries, t Nor was this accom- 
panied by narrow or fanatical doctrinal convictions. He ap- 
pears to have understood the gospel of God's goodwill to men 
in its fulness and freedom. " His thoughts," he writes to his 
wife, " are the same for ever for love and goodwill. Whatever 
changes there be of dispensations he is never indeed ... an 
enemy. When he is as an enemy, it is still peace that is in 
His thoughts : there is never ill in his mind — never an ill 
turn, so to speak. None of his thoughts are thoughts of ill. 
Believe this, O believe this ! dear heart." " There is but one 
promise in all the Scripture that I dare look to," said his 
dear friend Durham, as he lay near his death, " ' Come unto 

* " When he first entered on his Sabbath's work, he ordinarily prayed 
ane hour, for he took in all the publick things in that prayer. . . . His 
band in the Sabbath would have been all wet, as if it had been douked 
with tears before he was done with his first prayer. ... He used to have 
that expression and petition in many of his excellent prayers, « that we 
may never outlive our integrity nor die undesired.' " Wodrow's ' Analecta,' 
vol. iii. p. 48. 

f Letter from Session of Scots' Church in Rotterdam to John Carstares. 
Ferrie, p. 36. — " Mr. John Carstares was eminent in many things but he 
excelled in prayer. Mr. James Wood used to say of him that for lecturing 
and preaching they could some way keep up with Mr. Carstares ; but in 
prayer there was none able to hold up with him." { Analecta,' Maitland 
Club, vol. ii. p. 148. " He served the first Table " (at Holy Communion) 
"in a strange rapture, and he called some ministers there to the next, 
but he was in such a frame that none of them would come and take 
the work off his hand. He continued at the work with the greatest en- 
largement and melting upon himself and all present that could be ; and 
served fourteen or sixteen Tables." Ibid. 



I.] TEE COMMONWEALTE. 9 

me all ye that are weary.' May I venture my Salvation upon 
it ?" " Yes," said Carstares, " if you had a thousand souls you 
might venture them on it.* 

Durham, who died at the early age of thirty-six in 1658, 
seems to have left his MSS. to John Carstares ; and several of 
them, on their publication, were prefaced by him. Among 
these were the sermons on Isaiah, the lectures on Kevelation, 
and the ' Unsearchable Eiches of Christ,' the last of which was 
especially admired and valued in Scotland. Carstares also 
wrote the * Epistle ' or preface to Calder wood's ' History of 
the Church.' A carefully revised copy of the history having 
been sent by him to Macward/in Holland, was printed at 
Rotterdam in 1678.f In his preface he contends earnestly 
" that there is a particular form of Church government of 
Divine Right ;" and that in no church has this form been 
maintained in greater simplicity and more primitive purity 
than in the Church of Scotland. 

The ten years of the Commonwealth were years of com- 
parative peace for the Church ; during which, had internal 
dissensions and political contendings been forborne, Scottish 
Presbytery might have established itself on a broad national 
basis, which no subsequent revolutions could have under- 
mined. Charles Stuart — whether covenanted or uncovenanted, 
as bad a king as could have been found for any Christian 
state — was fairly out of the way. A government, tolerant, 
just, and strong, was in power. The material interests of the 
country prospered under the benign influences of peace and 
free trade with England. The General Assembly, no doubt, was 
disbanded and in abeyance, like the Rump Parliament in the 
South ; but in spite of its silence and inaction, religion was 
alleged to flourish. " The Scotch clergy, persisting in their 
own most hidebound formula of a Covenanted Charles Stuart, 
bear clear testimony that at no time did Christ's gospel so 
flourish in Scotland, as now, under Cromwell the Usurper.''^ 

* ' Analecta,' vol. i. p. 215. 

f Calder wood's History, Wodrow Society, vol. viii. Appendix, p. 4-10. 

X Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 151. 



10 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

But throughout all this period the Church was split into 
two opposing factions, and the hostile clergy strove, with 
fanatical violence, over the remonstrances, resolutions, and 
protests, which embodied their political crotchets and their 
ecclesiastical bigotries. 

At Carisbrook Castle, in 1647, Charles I., driven by sore 
necessity, had entered into a certain engagement with the 
envoys of the Scots' Estates, promising to sanction the Cove- 
nant and to make other concessions to the Presbyterians. 

This compact was denounced by the General Assembly ; 
under whose pressure an " Act of Classes," as it was called, 
was passed, by which every one, who had taken any part in 
support of the engagement, was debarred from all public 
employment in the Church, the magistracy, or the legislature. 
This Act — justly stigmatised as " one of the most bigoted and 
illiberal pieces of legislation which ever disgraced the statute 
book of any country "* — was not rescinded till May 1651, after 
having been in force about three years. This rescission 
gained a qualified approval from the General Assembly; 
but a protest against the Assembly's action was given in by 
twenty-two ministers. The majority, adhering to the reso- 
lutions in which the Assembly ratified the policy of the 
Estates in repealing the Act of Classes, became known by 
the name of the " Resolutioners ;" the protesting minority 
by that of the " Protesters." The Church was divided be- 
tween these two parties. The party of the Eesolutioners was 
the larger, and was composed of the peaceable, liberal, and 
constitutional supporters of orderly Presbyterial discipline, 
worship, and government, those who in more recent times 
would be distinguished as the " Moderates," — the wise men 
of the " Via Media." The Protesters, early infected with the 
leaven of the Puritanism, which the sectaries brought to the 
North with them, were looser in their views of Church 
government, less reverent and heedful of those forms and 
usages of public worship which had hitherto been observed 
in Scotland, and more hot and vehement in speech and ges- 
* Cunningham's ( Church History,' vol. ii. p. 168. 



I.] RESOLUTIONERS AND PROTESTERS. 11 

ture, whether in prayer or preaching. Their stiff-necked ex- 
travagance, and perverse intolerance, blinding their eyes to 
the plainest rules of policy and laws of human nature, were 
sufficiently illustrated in their treatment of Charles II., whom 
they drove even to the degradation of confessing and bewailing 
his father's sins, and his mother's " idolatry." Their overbear- 
ing fervour, noisy zeal, and restless craving for the extinction 
of opinions differing from their own, gave them that hold 
over the multitude which zealots and fanatics readily obtain ; 
but men of calm and charitable temper, of gentle culture, 
and of sound political experience and judgment, were alarmed 
and repelled by their extremes.* The most notable name 
among the constitutional Resolutioners was that of the good 
and sagacious Baillie ; among the perfervid Protesters that of 
the pious Kutherford, " the last of that race of Scottish clergy, 
who were vehement Presbyterians and great scholars."! 

It was perhaps natural that John Carstares should take 
the same side as his old master in theology. At first he 
seems to have made some effort at peace, or mediation between 
the factions ; for we find a friendly conference of representa- 
tives from each, held in his '* chamber," with no satisfactory 
result. But, like most men who join themselves to any body 
of pious enthusiasts, he soon became himself enthusiastic in 
the cause ; whose miserable watchwords, " Treaty with the 
King " — " Act of Classes " — " Commission's answer to the 
query," &c. &c, seem now almost beyond the grasp of human 
interest. Baillie, in one of his long letters, written in 1654, 
bewailing the predominance of the " heady men " who "waste 
the Church," and " frame our people to the sectarian model," 
attributes their undue " prevalence " in Glasgow chiefly to 
" Mr. John Carstares' zeal." % 

Other attempts, however, to effect a reconciliation are 
mentioned by Baillie, to which John Carstares was favour- 

* See Baillie in many passages, especially vol. iii. pp. 244, 245. 
f Burton's ' History of Scotland from Agricola's Invasion,' vol. vii. 
p. 431. 

% Baillie, vol. iii. pp. 199, 200, 248, 249. 



12 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

able, but to no purpose. At one time, says the former, " We 
began to hope for a concord;"* but the hope came to no 
fruition. When he refers to Carstares again, it is in con- 
nection with the prophetic enthusiasms — the jealous strifes — 
the irrational attempts to " purge out " all opponents, which 
were the natural fruits of successful fanaticism ; and which 
ran their course, impairing the influence of the Church and 
dissolving many of the best elements of its corporate strength, 
until the fatal era of the Restoration. 

It is necessary that we should keep in view the character 
of the times in which the boyhood of William Carstares was 
passed, and of the influences which surrounded him in his 
earliest years. His father's house in Glasgow, where the 
accomplished Durham and the quaintly witty Zachary Boyd 
were familiar guests, must have been often the scene of 
learned and mirthful converse, no less than of piety and 
prayer ; but it must oftenest of all, no doubt, have re-echoed 
with the Protesting brethren's groans over the defections of 
the times — their quaint applications of Old Testament names 
and stories — their mutual exhortations to "testifying" and 
"purging" — their long and marvellously uttered supplica- 
tionsf — all solemn and wonderful, if somewhat wearisome 
and perplexing, to the boy. The first intimation of his 
existence is in a letter from John Carstares to " his loving 
sister Katharine" (wife of the Rev. James Wood), dated 
"Glasgow, 16th February, 1649." — "Your sister is growing 
strong," he says, " and a fine nurse to her son, yet alive."J 
[He was born on the 11th of February.] "Let the Lord 
own him for his." 

In Ferries collection there is an undated letter to " My 
dearest nephew," in which an uncle, resident in St. Andrews, 

*'Baillie, vol. iii. p. 297. 

f " The man's vehemency in his prayer— a strange kind of sighing, the 
like whereof 1 had never heard, as a pythonising out of the belly of a 
second person, made me amazed." Baillie, vol. iii. p. 245. 

$ (Here, as elsewhere, in quoting these ancient letters and MSS. I 
modernize the spelling, unless there appears to be some adequate reason 
for preserving the old peculiarities.) 



I] AT SCHOOL. 13 

urges that William should be sent to college there. " He 
may have a great deal better occasion to follow his studies 
nor in Edinburgh, where there are so many occasions to 
divertisements, and will do me and my best half a singular 
pleasure, and shall be used as our own son." The best half 
adds a postscript : — " These are earnestly to entreat you to 
obey your uncle's desire in sending your son to us. . . . 
I saw your son at Edinburgh. He promised to get leave 
from his mother to be with us this vacance." This request 
was not acceded to. He never attended either school or 
college at St. Andrews. He was sent, " when very young," 
says McCormick, "to board with the Rev. Mr. Sinclair, a 
Presbyterian minister, who kept boarders at his manse of 
Ormiston in East Lothian." " Many young gentlemen of the 
chief families in Scotland " were educated at Mr. Sinclair's, 
and so strict was he in their classical training that he allowed 
no language but Latin to be spoken in his family.* Mr. 
Sinclair had been, some years before, one of the Regents of 
St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, where one of his colleagues 
was James Sharp, afterwards Archbishop. It is related that 
in an after-dinner discussion, at the college table, the two 
regents waxed so hot over the comparative merits of Presby- 
tery and Episcopacy, that Sinclair gave Sharp the lie direct, 
and Sharp gave Sinclair a box on the ear ; and this on " the 
Sabbath day." j No doubt the minister of Ormiston was more 
discreet than the regent of St. Andrews. 

It appears from the register of graduations that William 
Carstares entered the University of Edinburgh in 1663, and 
took his degree in 1667. He studied in the University " under 
the particular inspection of Mr. Paterson, then one of the 
regents of the college, afterwards Sir William Paterson, and 
clerk to the Privy Council of Scotland." J His proficiency is 
said to have been very marked, not only in the "several 
branches of the school philosophy," but in theology, the 

* McCormick, p. 4. 

f See an article on Sharp in ' North British Eeview,' No. 92. 

% McCormick, p. 4. 



14 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

science to which his own and his father's wish specially in- 
clined him. His father, harassed as he was with many 
troubles, spared no pains to secure to his son the advantages 
of a thorough education and took a careful personal interest 
in its progress. In a letter written on the 27th of October, 
1662, before William entered college, he says, "I have a line 
dated Sept. 20, from William, within these two days, wherein 
he gives me an account of his studies. ... I find he is not 
idle. The Lord command the blessing."* From another 
letter written in June 1664, in which he bids his wife pay 
her son's quarter, and desire his tutor to " write a particular 
account to me of Will's carriage and profiting," and refers to 
his still living with Mr. Sinclair, it is obvious that the long 
vacation must have been spent at Ormiston ; and that William 
was assisted in his studies by a tutor, under the superinten- 
dence of Mr. Sinclair, for at least the first summer after he 
went to college. Indeed this plan was probably followed as 
long as he remained in Scotland ; for in a letter from Mrs. 
Carstares written, it should appear, on the 30th of August, 
1666 — or within a year of the time of William's graduation 
— she tells her husband, " Your son's education, with his 
boarding and other necessaries, comes to 400 marks, which 
I have paid." t 

After he had taken his degree at Edinburgh he went to 
Holland, in order to complete his education there. Ere this 
evil days of darkness and danger had fallen on Scotland^, and 
his father had been called to suffer with his brethren. 

The restoration of Charles II. was the beginning of sorrows 
to the Scottish Church. During Cromwell's Protectorate the 
party of the Protesters, which, though not the most numerous, 
was accounted the most zealous, had the favour of the 
Government.^ They had consequently increased in numbers 

* Feme, p. 95. 

f Ferae, p. 161. The Scots' mark was in actual value equal to Is. Hd. 
of English money ; but its relative value in so poor a country as Scotland 
was much higher. 

% Principal Lee's ' History of the Church of Scotland/ vol. ii. p. 376. 



L] THE RESTORATION. 15 

and activity ; and now, along with the fanatical remnant of 
the Ker and Strachan "Remonstrants" that still lurked in 
the west, would have urged on Charles, who was, according to 
their fond imagination, their "Covenanted King," the old 
obligations to extirpate "Popery, Prelacy, superstition, heresy, 
schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary 
to sound doctrine and the power of godliness." " The Resolu- 
tioners," with more moderate and statesmanlike policy, while 
desirous that the Covenant should be recognised by way of basis 
of the King's restoration, were prepared to accept as sufficient 
for their demands, a confirmation of the proper rights and 
ancient polity of the Presbyterian Church, as the Established 
Church of the country. The grand idea of the Solemn 
League and Covenant of one Presbyterian Church established 
throughout the three kingdoms had not died out of the 
minds of Douglas, Baillie, and other leading "Resolu- 
tioners ;" but they did not cling to it with the intolerant 
tenacity of the opposite party. The Church reaped the har- 
vest of the prolonged strife between her two rival factions, 
in finding herself in the time of her emergency, when 
united counsels might have insured her prolonged peace and 
prosperity, divided and perplexed, and speaking with two 
voices in the presence of those who were full of jealous sus- 
picion, if not of positive hostility. The representation of the 
cause of the moderate party was entrusted to James Sharp — 
" a traitor who abandoned all " — who went to London " as an 
ambassador in the cause of a Presbyterian polity, and re- 
turned as the selected Archbishop of St. Andrews."* It 

* Burton, vol. vii. p. 398. 

Baillie writes to Spang : " Had we but petitioned for Presbytery at 
Breda, it had been, as was thought, granted ; but fearing what the least 
delay of the King's coming over might have produced, and trusting fully 
to the King's goodness, we hastened him over, without any provision for 
our safety. At that time it was that Dr. Sheldon, now Bishop of London, 
and Dr. Morley, did poison Mr. Sharp our agent, whom we trusted, who, 
piece and piece, in so cunning a way has trepanned us, as we have never 
win so much as to petition either King, Parliament, or Council." Dated 
May 12, 1662. Baillie's < Letters,' vol. iii. p. 484. 



16 WILLIAM CABS TABUS. [Chap. 

would have needed more than treachery on Sharp's part, 
however, to have betrayed the cause successfully, had the 
Church not been both divided against itself, and weakened by 
the heady policy of the Protesters. They had carried Puri- 
tanical pietism and coercion to an excess. Their spirit had not 
been charitable ; their discipline had been irrationally severe ; 
their desire to meddle and rule in civil affairs restlessly 
obtrusive. Among the elements of revolution which were 
seething in the country, at this time, there was an irritation, 
and impatience of moral restraint and ecclesiastical control 
among the upper classes, which the Protesters' predomi- 
nance had fostered. The Church was not disliked for its own 
sake ; Presbytery had not lost its hold ; but society was pro- 
voked and wearied with this intolerant section of the clergy ; 
and few intelligent men had any sympathy with that perti- 
nacity of principle which clung to reasons of division, as 
eagerly as if they had been bonds of union. The results 
were the " Act Eescissory," by which all legislation subse- 
quent to 1640, and in the interests of Presbytery, was swept 
out of the statute book ; the " Act for the restoration and re- 
establishment of the ancient government of the Church by 
bishops and archbishops ;" the execution of the Marquis of 
Argyll,* and of James Guthrie, f the most zealous of the Pro- 
testers ; and the burning of the Covenant by the common 
hangman. 

On the 14th of August, 1661, the Episcopacy against 
which Scotland had struggled ever since James's first in- 
trigues in its favour, was restored by Koyal proclamation ; 
and four prelates brought down from London the inestimable 
gift of the Apostolical Succession, for the benefit and salva- 

* "Mr. [John] Carstares was called to be with the Marquis, to preach 
to him in the prison, the last Sabbath of his life." 'Analecta,' vol. iii. 
p 52. Mr. Graham Dunlop possesses a ring given on this occasion by 
the Marquis to the divine. 

f " Guthrie being minister of Stirling while the King was there, had 
let fly at him in his sermons in a most indecent manner. . . c This per- 
sonal affront had irritated the King more against him than against any 
other of the party." Burnet, vol. i. p. 206. 



I.] TEE ACT OF 1662. 17 

tion of the Scottish Church and people.* All this was but 
in harmony with the policy which in England produced 
the Act of Uniformity, and drove 2000 Presbyterian minis- 
ters from their churches. But in Scotland the policy was 
less exposed to the influence of a healthy and indepen- 
dent public opinion than in England ; and it was executed 
by more unscrupulous and violent agents. Sheldon and 
Clarendon were men of a different stamp from Sharp and 
Middleton. In the following year the disastrous effects 
of this treacherous and unprincipled policy began to ap- 
pear. An Act was passed by the pliant Parliament — in 
which the bishops had now taken their seats — requiring 
from every man in a public office, or place of trust, an 
abjuration of the Covenant and declaration of its unlaw- 
fulness. Another enacted that all ministers who had, since 
1639, been appointed to parishes " without presentations 
from the lawful patrons," t must now either quit their charges, 
or accept presentation from the patron, and collation from the 
bishop. All who refused to do this were to leave their 
manses before the 1st of November, 1662 ; and were forbidden 
thereafter to reside within twenty miles of their old parishes, 
six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral town, or three miles 
of any royal burgh. The grinding oppression, which prompted 
and applied these and similar Acts of a servile legislature, 

* These were Sharp, Fairfoul, Hamilton, and Leighton. " Sharp, the 
chief contriver and author of the scheme, solicited for himself the Arch- 
bishopric of St. Andrews, because he pretended to be afraid that if a violent 
man obtained the primacy the country might be utterly ruined. . . . 
Fairfoul, Archbishop of Glasgow, was a man of scandalous life, and totally 
destitute of abilities. He had scarcely ever been distinguished at all except 
for his jollity and buffoonery. . . . Hamilton, Bishop of Galloway, was 
another contemptible driveller. He (as well as Sharp and Fairfoul) had 
pretended great zeal for the Covenant, insomuch that before dispensing the 
Sacrament he had been in the habit of using a form of excommunication 
borrowed from the example of Nehemiah. Shaking the lap of his gown, 
he said, ' So may God shake out every man from his house that dealeth 
falsely in this Covenant.' " Lee, vol. ii. p. 320 ; Burnet, vol. i. p. 241. 

f Since 1638 patronage had been practically in abeyance. In 1649 it 
had been abolished by law. 



18 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

soon evoked the indignant spirit of Scottish Presbytery. No 
less than 350 ministers suffered themselves to be driven from 
their churches, rather than comply with " the Black Acts." 
In the West the resistance was most determined. There the 
clergy were, for the chief part, men of good family and high 
character, and " it can hardly be imagined to what a degree 
they were loved and reverenced by their people." * Among 
these was John Carstares. " He was taken to task " by the Par- 
liament itself, in the hope that he and some other "leading 
ministers in the West " might be brought " to a compliance 
with the new government," t and led to influence others to 
the same purpose. The attempt to pervert his principles 
failed, and he was sent to prison. His close confinement 
seems not to have lasted many weeks, and he was then al- 
lowed to go to reside at Dalkeith, in terms of the six-mile 
Act ; whence he writes to his wife, still in Glasgow, asking 
her to send him sundry books from his library, and giving a 
cheerful account of his health and contentment with his 
position.^ " Charge Will from me," he adds, " to make 
earnest of seeking God, and to be diligent at his books." 
His troubles were not over, however, with the relaxation of 
his confinement to prison. In March, 16G4, he travelled to 
St. Andrews to see his brother-in-law, Principal Wood, who 
was on his death-bed. Sharp, "that bold and impudent 
calumniator," as he calls the Archbishop, with a vehemence 
unusual in his language, had stated that Wood was now 
indifferent about Presbyterianism. The dying man must 
needs dictate a refuting " testimony," to vindicate himself 
from such a charge. Carstares subscribed this testimony as 
witness. He was immediately summoned by Sharp before 
the dreaded Court of High Commission, which, along with 
the other appanages of prelacy, had been restored after 1602.§ 

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 281. 
f Memoirs of Veitcli and Brysson, p. 7. 
t Ferric, p. 90. 

§ Here are two samples of the kind of justice administered by the Privy 
Council and the High Commission : — ■ 

In June, 16G4, an Episcopal curate having been settled in the parish of 



I.] JOHN GAESTARES IN HID IN a. 19 

Carstares, however, did not appear, but after writing to the 
Lord Chancellor, Glencairn,* that he could not obey the cita- 
tion of the court, he fled to a place of concealment. Some- 
times from Isle Magee, in the north of Ireland, sometimes 
from Can tyre, sometimes from refuges which it is impossible 
to identify, he writes to his wife, pouring out his religious 
meditations, — telling her of his welfare or his trials, giving 
now and then homely and practical injunctions, which touch 
chords of lively human sympathies with the much- enduring 
man. He writes to her as his " worthie and dear sister," and 
calls himself " John Jamesone," and resorts to many other 
little artifices of concealment to mask his meaning and 
identity, should the letters fall into unfriendly hands. Thus, 
writing very soon after Wood's death, he announces his 
arrival at some hiding-place, " that little commodity " (him- 
self) " came hither safe yesterday morning. ... It is in 
tolerable good case. Let me know whether the waiters 
will make search for such commodities, and if they know it's 



Dreghorn, the heritors and whole inhabitants withdrew from the Church. 
The Privy Council forthwith ordained that a party of soldiers should be 
quartered on the parish, with power " to uplift the penalty of 20 shillings 
Scots, toties quoties" from every parishioner who does not attend the 
curate's ministrations. 

At Ancrum, the parish minister was ejected, and a curate who had been 
excommunicated twenty years before, and who held two other benefices, 
was put in. On the day of his induction, amid some crowding and noise, 
a poor woman plucked him by the gown,, wishing to speak to him ; where- 
upon he struck her violently with his staff. Seeing this, some boys threw 
a few stones at him, but did not hit him. This was represented as a 
treasonable tumult ; and there was some local fining and imprisoning ; but 
the woman, her two brothers, and four of the boys, were taken before the 
High Commission. The woman was sentenced to be scourged through the 
streets of Jedburgh. Her brothers, who were fathers of families, were 
banished to Virginia. The boys were scourged through the streets of 
Edinburgh, branded on the face with a hot iron, and then sent to Bar- 
badoes to be sold as slaves. Nine "right reverend fathers in God" were 
members of this lenient tribunal. See Wodrow's History (Burns's edition), 
vol. i. pp. 393, 400. 



Veitch and Brysson, p. 491. 

C 2 



20 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chat. 

gone by thein, what price they will rate it at." Again : 
" Send me the Hebrew Grammar I some time looked on 
when with yon at Glasgow ; it's a little grey-skinned book. 
Send me also my mickle black satin cap ; help it if it need." 
" Let me know as near as you may when ye think probably 
you will be brought to bed. The good Lord be with you to 
refresh and comfort you with his own presence." From 
another long letter dated the 12th of August, 1664, it would 
appear that at that time William was beside him in his re- 
treat, as he says, " Will will direct my letter to you." " My 
dear," the wife writes in her turn, " I had reason always to 
bless the Lord that ever I knew you ; and this day I desire 
to bless him more than ever . . . that I have a husband 
wandering and suffering for the truth." Again she writes, 
with a quiet sadness that is very touching : "It hath pleased 
the Lord to remove my little gent. Kobert " (the child born 
during his father's wanderings). "They sent for me, but he 
died before I came. There is many things sadder in our lot 
than the death of a child, yet I had my own heaviness for 
him/' 

Colonel Wallace, in his narrative of the Eising at Pent- 
land,* states that John Carstares was in hiding up till the 
time of the rising ; but we cannot either confirm or disprove 
this from his letters. We know that on the 28th of Novem- 
ber, 1666, Mure, of Caldwell, along with some other gentle- 
men of the West, among whom was Carstares, met in the 
parish of Beith, and organised a squadron of cavalry, chiefly 
tenants of Caldwell, with which they set out — Mure taking 
the command — to join the insurgents,! who were marching 
from the south to Edinburgh. 

The skirmish at Bullion Green dispersed Wallace's force 
before Mure could unite with him, and the Caldwell contin- 
gent, of from forty to fifty horse, was disbanded. Carstares, 
who probably had uneasy recollections of Dunbar, with its ter- 
rible slaughter and rout, had joined this expedition witlr little 

* Veitch and Brysson, p. 421. 

f Caldwell Papers, Maitland Club, vol. i. p. 19. 



I.] JOHN CARSTARES IN HIDING. 21 

goodwill ;* but having joined it, he could not expect to evade 
the penalty of insurrection, however justifiable resistance to 
such a government as that of Charles might be. He was 
forfeited both in person and estate, and was expressly ex- 
cluded from the indemnity, which was granted in October 
of the following year.f We know little of his condition from 
this time till 1672, when he was again at liberty. Wodrow 
says that he was in Holland, and returned in 1672; % and 
Mr. Ferrie, who disputes this statement, on the authority of 
the late Kev. Dr. Steven, sometime minister of the Scots' 
Church in Rotterdam, produces no evidence to the contrary. 
Among John Carstares's letters in the Graham Dunlop col- 
lection is one addressed to Mrs. Carstares, and dated the 5th 
of February, 1669, written from some place of hiding (in Can- 
tyre, I should say) " with my life/' he says, "in my hand." 
In this letter he tells his wife that he thinks of going to 
England with some friends ; " and whether thence to Hol- 
land, or first to Holland, if a fit occasion offer, I cannot so 

determinately say One or two days of your company 

these twenty days past, that I might have advised and con- 
sulted with you, would have been accounted by me a great 
favour, but He hath thought good to dispose otherwise, and 
I desire to submit, though the exercise of submission in such 
a case hath its own great difficulty. . . . Now, my dear, be 
not anxious about me. I am in good health. . . . Send me a 
good quantity of the filings and nibblings off, with the glasses 
of your [ivord illegiHe] lignum vita?. I find it agrees better 
with me than tobacco. I have no other herbs here to purge 
my head with ; or rather, send me a little piece of the timber 

* Veitch and Brysson, p. 421. 

t Ferrie, p. 34. 

% Wodrow (i. 196) says, "July 18th (1672), Mr. John Scot, son to 
Andrew Scot in Tushielaw, being incarcerate for writing to the Reverend 
Mr. John Carstares in Holland, is brought before the Council." And, 
"Sept. 3rd: Mr. Wm. Livingstone being imprisoned for correspondence 
with Holland, and Mr. John Carstares lately come from Holland, appears 
before the Council, and finding caution to appear when called under the 
penalty of 2000 marks, is liberate." 



22 ' WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

that is fit for no other use, that I may get it fresh when 
I need." This letter so far corroborates Wodrow, inasmuch 
as it proves that in February 1669 he intended to go to 
Holland, and upon the whole, we may fairly conclude that 
Wodrow is correct. 

" Him, who trod in his father's steps, doing mischief as far 
as he was able, you have received like fire into your bosom, 
of which God, I trust, will in time make you sensible."* 
So wrote Cromwell to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle 
when, after the battle of Dunbar, Scotland still believed 
in her " Covenanted King." The time had now come — a 
bitter time of judgment on divided counsels, short-sighted 
policy, fanatical intolerance, and that unwise mingling of 
things sacred with things secular, which had more than 
once imperilled Church and State in Scotland. Such was 
the time when William Carstares, having taken his degree 
at Edinburgh, began, like Moses, to look on his brethren's 
burdens and meditate on their oppression. The prospect 
was one that well might stir the wrath — even to "saeva 
indignatio " — of a young man of an " active, bold, and enter- 
prising spirit," t loving liberty and hating tyranny, and con- 
scious of formidable powers, which he longed to carry into 
the arena, where one after another of his friends and kindred 
was falling wounded or slain. Possibly, in distant London, 
the " Defender of the Faith,", amidst his mistresses and boon 
companions, did not fairly realise how his Scottish servants < 
were dealing with the votaries of that religion, which (unfit 
as it was in his august opinion " for a gentleman," and grim 
as no doubt were his recollections of its long prayers, longer 
sermons, fasts, purgations and covenants) was still the 
faith of many who had been ready in other days to die for 
him. But, whether Charles knew of all the scandals of his 
Scotch government or not, he was constitutionally responsible 
for them all ; and Presbyterian loyalty under such a govern- 
ment was impossible — impossible, at least, to a man young, 
generous, and ardent, like Carstares. He saw his country 
* Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 62. f McCormick, p. 4. 



I.] SCOTLAND IN 1667. 23 

writhing under the merciless dragonnades and exactions of 
fierce soldiers, such as Turner and Dalzell. He saw the 
prisons full of hapless victims, only released from the dungeon 
to be crushed iu the boots, or marched to the gallows, or 
shipped to the Plantations to be sold as slaves. He saw the 
ministers of the national church driven from their homes and 
churches, celebrating the rites of their religion, in secrecy 
and fear, among the broken and scattered remnants of their 
flocks. He saw the places of the ancient pastors filled by 
those, whom even one of their own order could but describe 
as worthless men of little learning, less piety, and" no discre- 
tion * He saw his own father skulking from covert to covert, 
like a felon, under a feigned name, unable, unless at peril of 
his life, to look on the face of wife or child, even in their days 
of sickness, sorrow, and death. The spectacle of these wrongs 
wrought on his spirit so powerfully that he was ready to rush 
into the dangerous melley when yet too young for its strife, 
and when he could only have ruined himself, and done the 
just cause no good. His father, to whom he — as it appears — 
had an access denied to the rest of his family, marking his 
disposition, thought it safest that he should not try to study 
divinity at such a distracted time, in Scotland. The natural 
and congenial refuge of the persecuted Scots was among the 
sturdy Dutch, who, in defence of their freedom and their 
Keformed Church, had passed through fires as keen as those 
which were burning in Scotland. And so John Carstares 
sent his son over to acquire his theology, and finish his 
education, at the University of Utrecht. 

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 279- 



24 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



CHAPTER II. 

Intercourse with Holland — Utrecht — Introduction to the Prince of Orange 
— Political Intrigues — "Grievances of Scotland" — Imprisonment in 
Edinburgh Castle. 

Holland, which had been the asylum of the Royalists during 
the Commonwealth, now afforded impartial shelter to the 
numerous Scottish Presbyterians and English Nonconform- 
ists who sought, on the Continent, the freedom which they 
could not find in Britain. Many Scots had chosen a refuge 
in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Ley den, and Utrecht. In all of 
these cities they found personal liberty under a constitutional 
government, and the pure worship of the Reformed Church ; 
and in the latter two, a genial and learned society of clergy 
and men of letters, to which all scholars were frankly ad- 
mitted. The Latin tongue was still the medium of com- 
munication among Scottish, as among Continental, scholars ; 
and Scots and Dutch were able to meet, and to converse 
familiarly in the language common to the brotherhood of 
letters. There was, and had been for many years, frequent 
literary intercourse between Holland and Scotland. Dr. 
Strang's (Principal of Glasgow College) work, ( De Yoluntate 
et Actionibus Dei circa Peccatum, 5 came out at Amsterdam in 
the year 1657; and his other book, 'De Interpretatione et 
Perfectione Scripturse,' was given to the world at Rotterdam 
in 1663. James Koelman, a learned Dutch divine, translated 
into his own language Rutherford's ' Letters ' and Guthrie's 
* Great Concern ;' and Borstius, a minister of the Dutch 
Church in Rotterdam, performed the same office for 'Naph- 
tali' in the year 1668.* Baillie's folio on Scriptural and Clas- 
* Steven's ' History of the Scottish Church, Kottcrdam,' p. 73. 



II.] HOLLAND AND UTRECHT. 25 

sical Chronology (' Operis Historici et Chronologici libri duo ') 
had been published at Amsterdam. Calderwood's History 
was printed by Waesberg in Eotterclam. John Brown of 
Wamphray's ' History of the Indulgence' was also issued 
from the Dutch press, and the author was minister of the 
Scots' church at Amsterdam. Kutherford was offered the 
chair of Divinity at Utrecht, on the death of Dematius, in 
1651, and several years afterwards his ' Examen Arminian- 
ismi ' was re-edited there. Mac Ward, a scholar and author, 
ministered to the Scotch congregation at Kotterdam. William 
Spang, a ripe scholar, whose ' Eerum nuper in Eegno Scotiaa 
gestarum Historia ' had been published in 164:1 at Dantzic, 
was minister at Campvere. Nevay, one of the revisers of 
Eous's version of the Psalms, and author of a Latin metrical 
translation of the Song of Solomon ; Livingstone, who amused 
his exile with a Latin translation of the Bible, and who was 
acquainted with nine languages besides his own ; and Fleming, 
the ingenious author of the still popular ' Fulfilling of the 
Scripture ' (the sixth edition of which was printed in Glas- 
gow in 1801, the first in Eotterdam in 1674), were among 
the banished ministers who, driven from their parishes and 
churches at home, were welcomed by the friendly Dutch * 

There was a large British colony at Utrecht, with the 
usual appanages of an English coffee-house, serving the 
purposes of a club, and an English church, in which an 
exiled minister, English or Scottish, officiated. The town, 
with its varied society, its noble cathedral, its shady mall, 
and open walks beyond the gates, t must have been, in those 
clays, as it is now, a cheerful and pleasant residence. 

Among the professors of the University whose prelections 
William Carstares, as a student of theology, attended, were 
Leusden, the great Hebraist, under whose care the two Am- 
sterdam editions of the Hebrew Bible were brought out in 
1661 and 1667 ; and Witsius, well known for his strict piety 

* Scots' ' Worthies ;' Burton's * Scot Abroad ;' Wodrow, &c. &c. 
f Calamy's ' Historical Account of my own Life,' 2nd edition, vol. i. 
p. 142, et seq. 



26 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

and orthodoxy, and whose works are still in high repute with 
Calvinists. Witsius understood English well, was a great 
admirer of English divinity and literature, and " was always 
very civil to the English." * 

We have no record of Carstares's student life at Utrecht. 
In the 'Album Sfcudiosorurn ' (torn. i. p. 127) it stands that 
in the year 1669, " Eectore Cypriano Eegneri ab Oesterga," 
"Gulielmus Carstaers, Scoto-Britannus," was enrolled as a 
student. In the ' Promotie,' or graduation album, of the 
corresponding period his name does not appear,! which is, no 
doubt, to be explained by his having already taken his M.A. 
at Edinburgh. The time which elapsed between his gradua- 
tion at Edinburgh, in July 1667, and his entrance at Utrecht, 
is a blank to us, and so is the time which he spent at Utrecht. 
We detect no mention of him anywhere ; and there is no 
letter, of his own or his father's, throwing any light on his 
history* The first glimpse we get of him is from the follow- 
ing letter to his sister, Sarah Carstares. He had three 
brothers, Alexander, James, who died in 1679, aged sixteen, 
and Kobert, who died in infancy ; and five sisters, of whom 
Sarah was the eldest, and presumably only a year or two 
younger than William. John Carstares names in his will 
his daughters Sarah, Katherine, and Ursula. Mrs. William 
Carstares in her will, dated 1724, names her " sister-in-law 
Jean Carstares" wife of Principal Drew of St. Andrews. 
Besides these there was another sister, Margaret, who married 
a Major Coult, Commandant of Edinburgh Castle. She and 
Jean must have been born after the date of their father's 
will, 1664. 

The letter is superscribed " This for his affectionate sister, 
Sarah Carstairs J ": — 

" Utrecht, March 23, 1672. 

" Dear Sister, — I take this opportunity of saluting you, and 
assuring you that notwithstanding of my silence in not writing to 

* Calamy, vol. i. p. 166. 

f This information was very kindly procured for me by Dr. John Muir, 
from Professor de Jong, of Utrecht. 
X At this time he spelt his name so. 



II.] LETTER TO SARAH. 27 

you, yet my affection to you as a sister is not in the least cooled, 
neither am I forgetful of you nor of the rest of the children, but 
often beg of God that you may all of you be blessed with spiritual 
blessings in Jesus Christ, whom if you have for yours, it is not 
much matter what be your condition in the world. It is his favour 
that is better than life : it is the enjoyment of him that makes a 
sweet and comfortable life. If we knew him, sister, and had a 
discovery of the beauty and excellency that is in him, other things 
would be so far from bulking in our eyes that they would evanish 
and disappear. It was a sight of him that made David, a great 
prince in his time, choose rather to be a doorkeeper in his house 
than to dwell in the tents of Kedar, and desire to behold his beauty 
and inquire into his temple as the one thing worthy to be sought 
after. 0! when shall the desires of our souls be towards him 
and to the remembrance of his name. It is no less than his own 
omnipotent power must create these soul-desires in us after himself. 
! if he would do it : we will never be free till we be captivated 
by him, his service being choice and excellent freedom, — but who 
can speak aright of him ? For my own part, I am so conscious of 
my own unfitness to do it in the least measure suitably that I must 
be silent ; but I hope you have seen that in him which makes you 
ready to sell all and buy this soul-enriching infinitely precious 
pearl. Now sister, being in haste I must break off, and recommend 
you to the guiding of his spirit which leadeth into all truth. Re- 
member me kindly to your sister Katherine and the rest of the 
children. My best respects to young Ealston * and his lady, and 
to my cousin Glanderston, his mother and sisters, when you shall 
have occasion to see them. 

" Your own brother 

" W. Carstairs." 

One can fancy that poor Sarah had some suppressed sense 
of respectful disappointment as she made her way to the last 
word of this letter — excellent as it is — without finding a 
syllable of news, or the slightest hint of any of her brother's 
doings, or interests, or occupations. 

This kind of writing seems to have been one of the reli- 
gious fashions of the time. The letters of John Carstares 

* Son of Ealston of that ilk. His father married Ursula Mure, a sister 
of Mrs. John Carstares. " Cousin Glanderston " was William Mure, Mrs. 
Carstares' nephew. 



28 WILLIAM CAR STARES. [Chap. 

and all his correspondents abound with it. It, no doubt, was 
full of reality to the writers and readers, but to the modern 
critic the constant repetition of Scripture phrase and orthodox 
commonplace is apt to look tedious and artificial ; and the 
absolute exclusion of what we call " news " from letters, which 
are in many instances our only sources of information about 
the writers of them, is provoking. 

The next letter in the Graham Dunlop collection is dated 
"London, Deer. 10, 1672;" and though it begins " Loving 
friend " and is signed " your affectionate friend and servant 
Williams," it is evidently intended for the same person as 
the last, and is of exactly the same character. It contains 
no indications whatever of the writer's personal history, 
which at this period must have been sufficiently interesting, 
for he had already begun that course of political activity 
and negotiation, which was yet to lead him to much trouble 
and to much honour. It is impossible to ascertain whether 
he had at this time entered on any of the duties of his pro- 
fession. McCormick, whose account of this portion of his 
life is singularly confused and entirely destitute of dates, 
says that on completing his theological studies he " passed 
his trials according to the forms of the Presbyterian church, 
and obtained a licence to preach the gospel." * 

That he returned to Scotland for this purpose is ex- 
tremely unlikely ; nor was it necessary that he should do so.t 
There was full ministerial communion between the Keformed 
Church of Scotland and that of Holland. Scotch candidates 
for the ministry were readily received, as probationers, by 
the Dutch Synods ; and the local " Classis," or Presbytery, 

* McCormick p. 8. 

f The persecuted Presbyterian clergy of Scotland contrived to meet from 
time to time to examine candidates for the ministry or to give ordination ; 
but the prelates procured an Act of Parliament in 1672 whereby this was 
stringently forbidden ; and at this time, says Wodrow, " there was a 
sensible decrease of Presbyterian ministers by death, banishment, and the 
hardships of the time ; and it was attended with no small difficulty to get 
young men sent abroad to other Protestant churches, to be ordained to the 
holy ministry." Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 198. 



II.] CAB STARE 8 AND FAG EL. 29 

conferred ordination or induction, when required, on the 
ministers elected by the Scotch congregations within their 
bounds.* 

Even the indefatigable researches of the learned author 
of the l Fasti Ecclesise Scoticanse ' have failed to discover any 
record of William Carstares receiving either licence as a 
probationer, or ordination as a minister, in Scotland ; and it 
may be inferred, with tolerable certainty, that he received 
orders from the Dutch presbyters. Mr. Ferrie possesses a 
certificate, dated June 9, 1681, in these terms: " These are to 
certify all whom it may concern that Mr. William Carstares 
is to our knowledge a lawful ordained minister of the gospel." 
This is signed by eight subscribers, among whom the only 
notable names are those of Matthew Sylvester and Kobert 
Trail.t It proves nothing beyond the fact that Carstares was 
known to them as an ordained minister. 

He had, however, formed associations, during his stay at 
Utrecht, which were not favourable to his peacefully follow- 
ing the sober calling of a pastor or preacher. On his first 
arrival in Holland, he had brought, from London, a letter of 
introduction to the Prince of Orange's physician, who, in his 
turn, had introduced him to the pensionary Fagel. That 
shrewd and clear-sighted statesman discerned in the young- 
Scot qualities well worth enlisting in his master's service, 
and securing in the interests of his policy. Fagel presented 
Carstares to William, who was at once impressed by his 
large and discriminating knowledge of parties and affairs 

* For an excellent account of the relations between the Scotch and 
Dutch churches, see Steven's l History of the Scottish Church in Eotterdam.' 
In the seventeenth century there were Scotch churches in Eotterdam, 
Campvere, Leyden, Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, the Hague, and Middle- 
burg, beside mixed congregations elsewhere, served sometimes by Scotch, 
sometimes by English ministers. 

f Kobert Trail, formerly minister of Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, 
was banished, and retired to Holland. In 1670 Charles requested the 
States General to remove him from the Dutch territories. He secluded 
himself for a time, but continued to reside, unmolested, in Holland, for 
several years afterwards. Steven's ' Scotch Church in Eotterdam,' p. 54. 



30 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

in Britain, and pleased with his courtier-like manner and 
address. During his residence at Utrecht Carstares seems 
to have been frequently with the Prince, and to have gained 
a large share of his confidence and favour. How far the 
Prince was cognisant of, or countenanced, the intrigues of 
the Scotch exiles, who made his territories the base of their 
operations, does not appear. Engrossed, as he must have 
been, with the war which both France and England waged 
against Holland, he probably could spare little thought for 
the designs of Scotch or other British refugees, except in so 
far as they might tend to farther his own. That he was 
aware that their bitter discontent, and sense of wrong, ex- 
pressed themselves in plots against the government of Scot- 
land, we cannot doubt. That he was too astute to compromise 
himself by any overt approval of their designs is no less 
certain. It is not likely that Carstares, who had been ad- 
mitted to the Prince's confidence, and who must have been 
extremely loth to risk the loss of his friendship, would have 
undertaken any negotiation to which his Highness was 
hostile. It was, therefore, probably with his concurrence 
that Carstares quitted Holland on his way to Scotland, in 
1672 — carrying with him the letters, " written in white ink," 
which were his first credentials as an envoy from the exiles 
to their friends at home. The ship in which he sailed from 
Kotterdam was taken ; and though he managed to escape, 
the letters were seized. Their tenor was obscure, as the 
writers had left to Carstares the detailing of their plans ; but 
enough was made out to show that there were plotters in 
Holland who had sent him over, and who were prepared to 
send arms and money, if he should find the Scotch malcon- 
tents ready to rise against the government. * 

It must have been after this escape that Carstares wrote 
from London, on the 10th of December, 1672, without, as I 
have said, the slightest reference to his personal history or 
doings. From this 10th of December, 1672, no trace of him 

* Burnet, vol. i. p. G2I. 



II.] LETTER TO SARAH. 31 

is to be found till the 17th of April, 1674, at which date he 
writes thus to his sister Sarah : — 

" Deak Sister, — I hope my forbearing to write, (I will not chal- 
lenge you for being more guilty of the same fault) will not pass 
under a bad construction with you ; if it do, I assure you it is 
without ground, for I am still and shall always be the same what 
in some measure I have been to you, — and that is your affectionate 
tho' insignificant brother. If ever any occasion did offer, I hope 
you should find that you had no less room in my affection than 
what such a sister deserveth. I am sorry that I have been forced 
to be so expensive to my parents by my stay here; but one dis- 
appointment upon the back of another hath made me do that which 
I am averse from, and which I hope I shall not always be under a 
necessity of doing — that is, of putting them to such charge on my 
account. I confess, sister, this is the one thing that troubles me. 
It may be at last in providence I may have some door opened, 
whereby I may be in a capacity to do some little service in my 
generation, and not always be insignificant in my station ; but alas, 
what service can 1 do, or what will God accept from me, who have 
lived for so many years in his world, and yet for no end ? Just 
were he if he should reject so unprofitable a servant. His patience 
hath been extended beyond what in reason could have been ex- 
pected. Alas, that his forbearance hath gained so little of its end 
upon me, a leading of me to repentance, and a turning to him from 
whom I have departed. It is nothing less than a pull of his own 
arm that can so draw as to make a sinner run. There are days of 
his power wherein he turneth backsliders and maketh them willing ; 
it is good to wait upon him because he waiteth to be gracious. I 
desire, sister, to commit you to him, who, I hope, will care for you, 
and pray that yourself and my other sisters and brothers (who are 
much upon my heart) may be blessed of him with blessings suit- 
able for you. Remember me kindly to Katherine, and the rest, 
whom I need not name; and forget not your tossed brother, I 
have, sister, sent you a small bible bound very neatly in two halves, 
by Mr. Gabriel Cunningham. Call for it from him, and take it as 
a small token of my remembrance of you. Let me hear from you, 
which will not be a little refreshing to him who is, sister, 

" Your most affectionate brother, 

" W. C." 

The nature of the " disappointments " to which he refers 
does not appear. It is probable that they were of a political, 



32 WILLIAM CAESTABES. [Chap. 



rather than of a clerical, kind. His activities do not seem 
to have turned at this period towards a clergyman's profes- 
sional work. He returned to Holland during this year, and 
again crossed to Loudon in the autumn. Suspected of being 
on a treasonable errand, he was arrested and sent to the 
Tower ; and papers, which warranted the suspicion, were 
found in his possession, and taken from him. He was ulti- 
mately carried down to Scotland, and committed to prison 
there, in February 1675. In order to understand the cir- 
cumstances which led to all this, we must look back for a 
little way upon the history of the times. 

The state of Scotland had not grown happier since Car- 
stares had left Edinburgh for Utrecht. The government of 
Lauderdale — himself a renegade Covenanter — whose avowed 
desire was that Parliamentary government should be abo- 
lished, and " the good old form of government by his Majesty's 
Privy Council"* take its place, though less violent than the 
earlier tyranny of Micldleton, was more systematically cruel 
and oppressive. It fully justified the judgment of Hallam, 
that " no part of modern history, for so long a period, can be 
compared for the wickedness of government to the Scots ad- 
ministration of this reign."t The " indulgences " granted to 
the Presbyterian clergy in 1669 and 1672, although boons in 
appearance, were not even acts of justice in reality. The in- 
dulgence provided that an ejected minister might, when his 
old parish fell vacant, return thither and exercise his ministry. 
He was to have the manse and glebe, but only as much of the 
stipend as the Privy Council chose to give him. He was 
never to perform any clerical function out of his own parish. 
He was not to step beyond it without the bishop's licence. He 
was not even to " lecture " (or expound Scripture) in his 
Sunday's service (which the bishops condemned as a Presby- 
terian abuse), but was to preach a set sermon on a set text, 
and no more.t This hampered and clogged "indulgence" 

* Burton, vol. vii. p. 465. 

f 'Constitutional History,' vol. iii. p. 435. 

X Burton, vol. vii. p. 458. Wodrow, vol. ii. pp. 130, 148. 



II.] LAUDERDALE'S POLICY. 33 



was followed by most stringent legislation for the benefit 
of those who did not accept it. All public worship on the 
part of the Presbyterians was forbidden, unless conducted 
by the " indulged " minister. Any meeting for worship or 
instruction, in a house or in the open air, was stigmatised 
as a " Conventicle " and declared treasonable. Persons 
frequenting such meetings were to be hunted down by the 
militia; the lairds on whose lands the conventicles were 
held were to be heavily fined; the ministers officiating at 
them were to be punished with death and confiscation of 
their goods.* The seeming grace of the indulgence was 
more than counterbalanced by the actual severity of the per- 
secution. Lauderdale's purpose was to conciliate the moderate 
party by the one, and to crash the irreconcilable by the 
other. " The penalties calculated for our western dissenters," 
he writes to Sir Kobert Murray, his confidential agent in 
London, " it is hoped will be stronger arguments to move 
them to outward conformity than any divines could use."f He 
strangely misunderstood the temper of his countrymen. The 
extreme Presbyterians, the representatives of the vehement 
Protesters and Kemonstrants of the Eestoration, and who 
were still numerous in the West, scouted the indulgence, and 
denouncing those who accepted it, thronged to their conven- 
ticles with a zeal which danger and penalty only kindled into 
hotter fervour. The moderate clergy, glad to be again 
allowed to preach the gospel in peace, and ready to make any 
legitimate concession for the sake of tranquillity and concord, 
availed themselves of the indulgence, but regarded it while 
they did so as in itself ungracious and partial. They felt 
that it was not by such a measure the government, which had 
so long oppressed them, could hope to secure their confidence 
and regain their attachment. The common people were, 
in general, hostile to the indulgence. The ministers who 
had accepted it were not of that class which had furnished 
the fiery preachers " to the times," whose semi-political 

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 534. Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 150. Burton, vol. vii. p. 458. 
t Burton, vol. vii. p. 464. 

D 



34 WILLIAM CARSTAEES. [Chap. 

harangues had, for many years before the Eestoration, excited 
their passions and directed their fanaticism. They turned 
from these preachers of the gospel in disgust, and labelled 
them " dumb dogs," and " king's curates," little better than 
the " bishops' curates," whom no devices of the government 
had succeeded in forcing them to listen to.* The result of 
the indulgence on the general community was, thus, the out- 
ward conformity of a certain number of ministers; the estrange- 
ment from them of the people at large, who adhered more 
and more to the extreme nonconformists ; and the emergence 
of a body of strenuous protesters against Prelacy and fanati- 
cal champions of Presbytery and the Covenant, who held 
themselves indignantly aloof, alike from the bishops and their 
clergy, and from the indulged ministers.! This body, ever 
growing in steadfastness, and (as oppression and misgovern- 
ment increased) becoming more distinctly the ark of refuge 
for the shattered liberties of Scotland and the rallying point 
for all the disaffected, kept alive through years of persecu- 
tion a political and religious enthusiasm of the keenest, though 
not of the purest, type which won its triumph in 1688. 

While Lauderdale tried to compel a uniformity by the com- 
bined aid of political stratagem and force of arms, a gentler 
and wiser attempt had been made within the Church, by the 
one man who redeemed the title of Scottish bishop from dis- 
credit. During the autumn and winter of 1670, Leighton, 
with the concurrence of the government, was endeavouring 
to promote an "accommodation," which should fuse the 
Episcopal and Presbyterian clergy into the unity of one 
national church. Conferences with leading Presbyterian 
divines, under Leighton's presidency, J were held, first in 



* Burnet, vol. i. p. 516. 



f These would seem from Wod row's lists to have numbered about one 
hundred. 

% Leighton also tried- to win over the common people, by sending 
through the West a deputation of Episcopal divines, of whom Burnet was 
one, "to argue upon the grounds of the accommodation/' They found 
the peasantry far too well versed in controversy to be open to their argu- 
ments. " They were ready with their answers," says Burnet, " to any- 



II.] LEIGHTON. 35 

Edinburgh, and afterwards at Paisley, at which he urged on 
the Presbyterians terms of union, that had received the royal 
assent, and whereby the differences between Episcopacy and 
Presbytery were reduced to points so small, that he hoped 
they would not prove stumbling-blocks. It was proposed 
that the bishop should act simply as the permanent mode- 
rator of the Presbytery or Synod; that the vote of the 
majority of the clergy should control him; that he should 
be censurable by the Provincial Synods ; that every minister 
at ordination, or on joining a church-court, should be free to 
declare that he accepted the bishop as his president for 
peace' sake, and not as in virtue of a "jus divinum."* 

These proposals, urged with all the apostolic earnestness 
and gentle wisdom of Leighton, were, after long debate 
and repeated consideration, finally rejected. George Hutchin- 
son, the leader of the Presbyterians at the conference, gave 
their decision in the words, " We are not free in conscience 
to close with the proposition made by the Bishop of Dun- 
blane, as satisfactory." " Before God and man," said 
Leighton in reply, " I wash my hands of whatever evils 
may result from the rupture of this treaty. I have done my 
utmost to repair the temple of the Lord."t 

A distracted nation, a broken church, hot-brained zeal in- 
stead of temperate wisdom, fanatical enthusiasm in the place 
of Christian charity; licence and tyranny in high places; 
suffering and discontent, swelling into bitter wrath, among the 
mass of the people, — this is the aspect of Scotland in these 
years of the Indulgence and the Conventicles. We need not 
wonder that eager eyes scanned the horizon for a gleam of 



thing that was said to them." He mentions also, on the authority of some 
of the "indulged" ministers, that the people generally, while full of zeal 
ior Presbytery, and ready to argue about the "intrinsic power of the 
Church," were very ignorant " of the essentials of religion." Vol. i. p. 517, 



* ' Life of Leighton,' prefixed to Pearson's edition of bis works, vol. i. 
p. 73. 

f Ibid. pp. 94-5. 

D 2 



36 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

light, and that indignant hearts were ready to risk a struggle 
for liberty and righteous government. The watchers of the 
night instinctively turned to the United Provinces. There a 
great company of exiles lamented their country's wrongs, 
and waited for the day of her deliverance. There a young 
y and sagacious Prince, the head of a free commonwealth, a 
Protestant and Presbyterian, was maintaining the rights of 
his people and the cause of religious liberty against all the 
might of France, and in spite of the hostility of England. If 
help was to be found anywhere, it must surely be found 
in Holland. 

Indications of a lurking discontent and disaffection were 
not wanting in England also ; and there, as in the northern 
kingdom, the Court and the government looked nervously to 
Holland, apprehensive of any sign of sympathy between the 
malcontents and the Prince of Orange, who, in the event of 
the Duke of York's exclusion, would stand very near the 
throne.* In the autumn of 1674 a discovery was made 
which revealed a system of treacherous correspondence with 
Holland, a portion of which was traced to the very office of 
the Secretary of State. It was on this occasion that Car- 
stares was sent over to London. The paper of instructions, 
which he carried, confirmed those suspicions of " ill designs "f 
which had already been rife. Although these instructions, 
when an explanation was demanded from the Prince, were 
declared to refer only to the levying of the regiments which 
the Dutch had been allowed to raise in Scotland for service 
abroad, the suspicions were not allayed. The government 
was not sorry to lay hold, in the person of Carstares, of one 
whom the disaffection and intrigue both of England and of 
Scotland seemed to have chosen as its instrument. Although, 

* Even as early as February 1673 the Duke of York anticipated his 
own exclusion. Jealous of the Prince of Orange, he hoped to arrange a 
marriage between his daughter Mary and the Dauphin, and allowed French 
influence to prevent her betrothal to William in 1674. See Dalrymple's 
1 Memoirs/ vol. ii. (Appendix) pp. 98 and 109. 

t Eurnet, vol. ii. p. 56. 



II.] "SCOTLAND'S GRIEVANCES." 37 

however, arrested in London for supposed complicity in this 
Dutch plotting, whose existence there was good reason to 
surmise, there were further charges on which the Scotch 
Privy Council was prepared to prosecute him. 

A pamphlet had recently appeared which had : exasperated 
Lauderdale and his friends. It was dated "Edinburgh, 
Jan. 27, 1674," and bore the title of ' An Accompt of 
Scotland's Grievances by reason of the D. of Lauderdale's 
Ministrie, humbly tendered to his Sacred Majesty." The 
indictment which it made out was temperately drawn, but 
was pitilessly severe in setting down in full and logical 
order, enriched with a bitter sarcasm, every abuse of the 
Duke's high office, of which he had been guilty. 

He had stifled the voice of Parliament by frequent and 
arbitrary adjournments, and by an unconstitutional initiative 
accorded to the " Lords of the Articles." He had intercepted 
the approach of suppliants to the throne. He had gathered 
into his own keeping the patronage of all the public offices 
in the kingdom. He had made nefarious compacts, whereby 
the monopoly of salt, and the duties on brandy and tobacco, 
were perverted to his own and his friends' advantage. 
He had connived at the debasement of the coinage, his 
brother, Lord Hatton, being General of the Mint. He had 
appointed " ignorant and insufficient men " to be judges of 
the Court of Session. He had been corrupt and unjust in 
divers transactions, in which he had employed his official 
authority for the benefit of private persons, his clients or 
favourites. He had been greedy of the emoluments of office, 
and had secured for himself a greater number of appoint- 
ments than he had any right to hold, being not only Lord 
High Commissioner, but also sole secretary, President of the 
Council, Commissioner of the Treasury, Captain of Edin-* 
burgh Castle, Captain of the Bass, Agent at Court for the 
Burghs, and one of the Extraordinary Lords of Session. He 
had been lavish and dishonest in his administration of the 
revenue, and had appropriated to himself not less than. 
£20,900 sterling in " donatives," and £16,350 yearly since 



38 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

lie became Commissioner. He had exhibited a personal 
pride, ambition, and lust of power, which rendered him alto- 
gether unfit to act as his Majesty's viceroy and representa- 
tive in his ancient kingdom. These heavy charges were 
followed by certain proposals, including an Act of Indemnity, 
the appointment of a new Commissioner, with instructions for 
the general redress of grievances, and also " for quieting and 
removing dissatisfaction in matters ecclesiastic ;" which, says 
the pamphleteer, " will restore that serene peace, which will 
make our affection and duty again to flourish in most signifi- 
cant acknowledgments." The 'Accompt,' after some racy 
illustrations of Lauderdale's coarse and overbearing humour, 
and " his dull and malicious jestings against his old practices 
and acquaintances," winds up with an earnest appeal on 
behalf of the Presbyterians, whose special troubles and wrongs 
it states calmly and fairly. The indictment, while most 
crushing to Lauderdale and his party, who, according to 
Wodrow,* never attempted to dispute its accuracy, is note- 
worthy in respect of two points ; these are — that it combines 
in one view, and attacks as one huge mass of misgovernment, 
the whole "grievances" of Scotland, giving no exclusive 
prominence to the sufferings of the Church, though assigning 
these a place in the general charge ; and that it draws an 
obvious distinction between the great body of the clergy, 
who either had accepted the indulgence, or were willing to 
forego their functions peaceably, and the zealous party of 
remonstrants, that would do neither. It names the " Fana- 
ticks " without sympathy or respect. It is, obviously, the 
production of a Presbyterian, but of a Presbyterian who was 
not a bigot, and to whom civil and religious liberty was of 
higher account than any form or theory of Church govern- 
ment — a Presbyterian, who valued Presbytery because it 
was the ally of that liberty, of which Prelacy had proved 
itself the foe, and who had nothing in common with zealots, 

* Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 293. The pamphlet is now a rare one, and is not 
embodied, as far as I know, in any later publication. I owe the use of 
the copy, now before me, to the kindness of Mr. David Laing. 



IT.] JAMES STEUART. 39 

who, for the sake of their Presbyterian formulas, would 
sacrifice the peace and prosperity of the realm. 

The chief share in the authorship of the ' Accompt ' was 
ascribed to James Steuart, son of Sir James Steuart, of 
Kirkfield and Coltness, sometime Lord Provost of Edinburgh. 
Sir James had fallen into disrepute with the government 
after the Kestoration, being a staunch Presbyterian no less 
than a staunch loyalist, and an unjust prosecution was insti- 
tuted against him by the Lords of the Treasury and Ex- 
chequer.* In this action he was defended by his son, with 
such ability that the charges against him fell to the ground. 
But the son suffered for the father's acquittal, by attracting 
the resentment of the government, and found his prospects 
at the bar so blighted, and his position so insecure, that he 
retired to Bouen.-f He had returned to Scotland before the 
publication of the ' Accompt,' and being already obnoxious 
to Lauderdale, was at once fixed upon as the most likely 
author, and the proper object for the offended Commissioner's 
revenge. Orders were issued for his apprehension, and fur 
the seizure of his papers. He got timely warning, and 
escaped ; but his papers fell into the hands of the Privy 
Council, who never divulged what they found in them. 

Although Steuart was regarded as the writer chiefly re- 
sponsible for the ' Accompt,' Carstares was suspected of a 
part in the authorship. :t 

Wodrow§ relates that he was sent from London to Scotland 
to be tried for his alleged share in James Steuart's misde- 
meanour ; but the Kecords of the Privy Council and of the 
Court of Justiciary, bear no trace of any trial of the kind. 

Probably he was not tried at all. It was a simpler process 
to shut him up, than to demonstrate his complicity with 
Steuart, or prove that because the 'Accompt' told the 
truth, with a stinging plainness which pierced the joints of 

* Coltness Collections, Maitlaixl Club, p. 38. 
f Ibid. p. 359. 

J Sprat's ' Account of the Rye-house Plot,' p. 77. 
§ Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 294. 



40 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Lauderdale's harness, it was therefore treasonable. A royal 
warrant was issued on the 26th of February, 1675, which 
transferred him from the Tower to the custody of the Go- 
vernor of Edinburgh Castle, to be kept " a close prisoner " 
until further orders. 

The following letter throws some light on the earlier 
period of his capture and imprisonment in London*: — 

" Novemb. 17, '74. 
" Sir, — I have according to your desire sent you a short account 
of what is my condition and what hath past betwixt my exami- 
nators and me ; upon the 19 of Septr. last I came to town and was 
resolved to have kept myself private for some days, because of 
some informations I had of an inquiry that had been made about 
me, at an Englishman who was sent to the tower and was but of a 
very small acquaintance with me, and though my innocence did 
make me fear no great harm, yet common prudence did advise a 
short retirement. An hour after I came I went to my chamber, 
(which I thought had been let) because of some things I had 
left there, which was convenient myself only should handle ; but 
finding my chamber was not given up nor my things removed as I 
had been informed they were, I resolved to lodge there that night, 
but upon second thoughts I resolved to go elsewhere, and went 
towards night to my chamber to take away some of my things, but 
thro' the information of my landlord (who as he himself says was 
made to believe that what be did against me would be useful ser- 
vice to his Majesty) the Messenger was at hand to seize upon me 
under the name of Williams or Carstares, (either at my chamber or 
at the house of one Mr. Thomson a Scotch minister,) by virtue of 
an order from Secretary Coventry dated August 7 ; (so that my last 
absence could not be the cause of it) accordingly that same night 
I was conveyed towards Whitehall, and a strict guard of two men 
within the room where I stayed set upon me night and day, till I 
was removed to the tower ; the next day after my taking I was 
brought to the Secretary to be examined, and my confession taken 
in write, and afterwards subscribed by myself; after a pre- 
amble about the great hurt I had done to his Majesty (but I am 
innocent) and the circumstances of my condition in my native 
country, I was desired to be ingenuous for my own good, because 

* This letter, in Carstares' own hand, is in the Advocates' Library, 
Wodrow, MSS. folio 59, No. 31, endorsed by Wodrow, " to Mac Ward." 



IT.] LETTER TO MAO WARD. . 41 

they had enough against me already, with other expressions which 
might have frighted, if I had not known my own loyalty. Then 
I was asked where I resided, I answered sometimes in the City and 
sometimes in the Country as in Kent. Then, they asked me what 
gentlemen I knew there. I ans. none, according to truth ; then 
I was asked where I had been in my last absence from the City, 
I told, because they knew as well as I, that I was at the Pr. of 
Orange's army being led thither by a curiosity of seeing it, and 
detained through danger of travelling much beyond my intention. 
Then I was asked about my being in Holland which I told was 
upon design of seeing my friends ; I was asked from whom I 
received letters out of Holland ; I told I had had some from Mr. 
McWard and Mr. Brown about general things, and being asked 
how I durst correspond wt. them and not bring their letters to the 
Secretary of State, I told that there was nothing in them of moment 
and that I could not deal so by my friends ; this was the sum of 
what passed then that was material. My examination being ended 
and the gentleman that wrote what I said being commanded to go 
out, and I left alone wt. the Secretary, he, with great civility and 
kindness, told me my hazard and how much they had agst. me and 
what severity I would meet with from other hands and in another 
place, to which I would be sent if I did not prevent it by ingenuity 
in confession ; and therefore desired if I would be continued in his 
hand and not more severely dealt with, that I would bring in others, 
and it should never be known from whence the information came, 
and he would do his utmost with His Majesty, who was clement, to 
procure me favour. I thanked him humbly, as I was obliged, for 
his kindness, and told him that I desired not to fall into the hands 
of any others but his, but that I had nothing else to confess ; upon 
which I was dismissed, and told that that would not do my busi- 
ness. Ten days after, I was brought from the Tower to the 
secretary's house again, whither his Lordship was also sent to 
examine me ; then I was asked about a letter which I had from 
Rouen from my cousin Archibald Mure, relating to an 100 and odd 
pounds stg. which he had left with me, to be paid here, according 
to his order as I did ; which I mention because, I hear that my 
Landlord then in his informations increased this to great sums of 
money brought in coaches and upon porters' backs, being so blockish 
as not to distinguish betwixt books and money ; and because he 
would have something to say when so much pressed by great 
persons, he hath made my few inconsiderable acquaintance multi- 
tudes of persons of quality calling for me daily at my chamber, 



42 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

But great men are wiser than to take notice (for indeed they men- 
tioned none of these things to me) of the stories of a crackbrained 
drunkard. Then I was asked concerning a letter from one Walker 
which was but of a very few lines wherein he speaks of his landing 
in Holland ; who this was I told, my Lo, Lauderdale telling me 
before that he knew the hand, making shifting needless ; but being 
asked from what land Walker had come I answered nothing at all ; 
then was I asked about some books that a letter from one Richard- 
son mentioned, and being much pressed I told that they were 
' Scotland's grievances ' which I had printed in Holland. My Lo. 
Laud, telling me that he valued not that pamphlet a straw, pressed 
me notwithstanding to tell to whom I had given any of those books, 
which I desired to be excused in telling that I would wrong no man ; 
and being urged again I still refused, and this was all I assure you 
that passed in this matter ; then I was asked about Mr. Durham's 
book on the Commands which gave occasion to My Lo. Laud, to 
tell the Secretary what Mr. Durham was, and how well his Majesty 
knew him and remembered him, as also to ask whose daughter my 
mother was. Then were produced some few Instructions from 
one Moulin to me, two of which had been torn out by me ; I was 
pressed to give an explication of those which at that time I refused 
to do and answered all their questions with silence, saying only 
that there was nothing there that prejudged his Majesty's interest ; 
and they finding me obstinate in my silence (which in a young man 
as I am, may well be judged to proceed from an apprehensive fear 
of great men which maketh gnats camels) did surcease from pro- 
posing any more questions, a long catalogue whereof I saw in the 
Secretary's hand, and Lauderd. told me my shins should pay for 
all, and I should not be believed any more speak what I would, 
and that so soon as his Majesty had a yacht ready, I should make a 
voyage ; but time will clear my innocence, and make him my friend. 
This is the ingenuous sum of what passed then ; only this I forgot 
— when there were any questions proposed which I had no mind to 
answer, and could not shift, I desired to be submissively silent ; 
but this was called canting ; and I was commanded in his Majesty's 
name to say either yes or no expressly; but I had no desire to give 
my answers in an irritating or contemning way ; but this not suf- 
ficing I was forced to say either Yes or No, the latter whereof I 
did chuse, then it was set down that I refused to answer. Some 
few days after this recollecting myself, and knowing that the 
general meaning of those Instructions was obvious to the reader, 
(which indeed amounted to just nothing) I did desire after re- 



IT.] LETTER TO MACWARD. 43 

deliberation to speak with the Secretary, who sent for me ; but 
being disappointed as to what it seems he expected and what I 
told him amounted to nothing more than might have been com- 
municated to every fishmonger, (but I can only tell wdiat I know 
and not all that is imagined) as he said, I was not heard out, but 
was sent away in a passion, and told that now I was off his hand 
and that he had no more to do with me ; but what passed betwixt 
us you know no doubt by this time, and believe it is true and all 
that passed of any moment. I forgot to tell you that I was also 
examined by one Sr. Thomas Chickley a privy Counsellour and a 
very civil gentleman, but he only asked me concerning the manner 
of my acquaintance with my fellow prisoner and my acquaintance 
in the Prince's army. 

" This is a true and ingenuous account of all ; by which you may 
see that I am accused formally of nothing, but thus dealt with on 
suspicions. I hear that they talk in the City of witnesses come 
from Holland to accuse me, but I value it not, for I know that 
there is none that can be brought to speak truth against me that 
will prejudge me. 

" I am also informed that it is reported that I desired two things 
of his Majesty ; one was not to be examined by Lauderdale, and 
the other not to be sent to Scotland ; but it is not so, as you may 
see by what is above written ; I hear also that I might have favour 
if I would but tell names, but tho' I know no ill of my friends, 
yet I hope through grace never to do that which may have the 
show of wronging of them, and I bless the Lord my imprison- 
ment hath put the thoughts of giving them satisfaction in this 
matter of names further from me than ever. 

" Now sir, I know that your mentioning what I have wTote will 
be so carried by you that it may not be known there is any way of 
hearing from me ; for my imprisonment continues most strict 
according to order of authority. This is designed for Mr. Ker too 
who hath heard of me no doubt ere now." 



44 WILLIAM CAESTABUS. 



[Chap. 



CHAPTEE III. 

Imprisonment— Eelease in 1679— Journey to Ireland — Letters from Lon- 
don — The Dunlops— Renewed Troubles — Marriage— Eeturn to Holland. 

The years of imprisonment dragged wearily on, while the 
political and religious condition of the country grew worse 
and worse. The spectacle of a government exerting all its 
powers, legislative and executive, for the purpose of making 
people go to church, would have been supremely ridiculous, 
had not the powers been exerted in such a savage way. 
Garcilasso de la Vega relates that when Atabaliba was on 
the road to execution, those about him advised him to desire 
baptism, threatening, unless he did so, to burn him alive. 
" Whereupon being baptized he was bound to a post, and 
there strangled."* The government of Lauderdale would 
seem to have imbibed the spirit of this measure of " careful 
criminal justice."! The people were ordered to go to 
church ; and if they did not go, they suffered for it in the 
flesh. The Episcopal curates supplied the authorities with 
lists of the defaulters, who were fined or imprisoned, or 
hunted down by the high-spirited Claverhouse, and the loyal 
Dalzell. Landlords and householders were made answer- 
able for the church-going of their tenants and families, 
under oppressive penalties. Writs of " intercommuning " 
were scattered through every county, prohibiting, as a crime, 
any intercourse with persons who went to conventicles^ and 
offering a bribe to any informer who should report the 

* ' Royal Commentaries of Peru,' 2nd part, book i. p. 36. 

f The term applied by Mr. Mark Napier, the last (let us hope) of the 
Cavaliers, to the enactment under which the two women were slowly 
drowned at Wigton. 

J Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 318. 



III.] THE PERSECUTION. 45 

name of an offender. The chamber of the Privy Council 
echoed with the howls of the victims of the boot. There, 
on one day, might be seen Dalzell striking the prisoners 
under examination over the mouth with his sword-hilt till the 
blood sprang : * on another, Lauderdale baring his brawny 
arms above the elbow, and swearing " by Jehovah " he would 
force the gentlemen of Scotland " to enter into those bonds "t 
Day after day, the tyrants in office consigned to their jails 
and dungeons the victims of the brutal injustice which had 
made nonconformity treason ; which had changed the ordi- 
nary intercourse of life among the Presbyterians into felony ; 
and had, as if by set design, driven peaceable and loyal sub- 
jects into readiness for rebellion.^ Ship after ship sailed from 
Leith with its cargo of white slaves consigned to the planta- 
tions in Virginia or the West Indies, because they had 
attended a conventicle, or been kind to an " outed " minister. 
The " Highland Host," let loose on the Lowlands, ravaged 
whole districts ; while the lawlessness of the marauder com- 
bined with the instincts of the thief to make this Celtic 
inroad terrible, even to a population inured to the outrages 
of Turner and Dalzell. 

During all these troubles John Carstares abode in Edin- 
burgh. He was invited, in 1677, to become minister of the 
Scots Church at Rotterdam,§ but declined ; and seems to 
have occupied himself in Edinburgh with religious writing, 
and doing good by his prayers, exhortations, and letters, as 
far as the limited opportunities of a man in his circumstances 
allowed. He was harassed with the gout, and his wife was 
broken in health. || Even she had not escaped a personal 
share in the sufferings of the time. She and her sister, Mrs. 
Durham, were for a short time in the Tolbooth, for keeping 
a conventicle — i.e., holding a meeting for religious edification 

* Burton, vol. vii. p. 452. 

f Bonds by which they and theirs were bound against " intercom- 
muning," or going to conventicles. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 137. 
% Burnet, vol. ii. p. 137. 
§ Steven, p. 58. 
|| Veitch and Brysson, p. 501. 



46 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

— in Mrs. Durham's house.* Well might her poor husband 
cry, as he does in a letter to Mac Ward, " ! if I knew of a 
cottage in the wilderness while I live, and were sure thence 
to go to the Kingdom !" His spirit grew weary of the con- 
tentions of his own people, no less than of the oppressions of 
the Prelatists ; and as his age ripened to its antumn, he 
became less zealous with the old protesting zeal. In March, 
1677, Broclie of Brodie, after calling on him in Edinburgh, 
says, " Mr. John Carstares expressed his dislike of Mr. John 
Wei wood's expression saying 'It was as great a sin to go to 
hear those that conformed as to go to a bordel house.' He 
said he durst not condemn and censure them that heard out 
of conscience."! " Is there," he writes at a later date, to 
Mac Ward, " no place to consider whether it were better to 
supersede our contendings than to have our Church ruined ?" $ 
I cannot ascertain that he had any direct intercourse with 
his son during the imprisonment of the latter. " Most of the 
time," says William, " I was denied converse with any of my 
nearest relations, even in the presence of a keeper."§ Wil- 
liam's tendency to political intrigue was a grievance to his 
father ; and at the time of his son's release, if not earlier, he 
" solemnly charged him never to meddle with such things 
again, but to exercise himself in preaching and prayer, 
and what other exercises did properly belong to a faithful 
minister of the gospel." || 

I find only two letters written by William during this im- 
prisonment. The one is dated " Feb. 3," but affords no clue 
to the year in which it was written. Part of it is addressed 
to Sarah, and part to a friend whom he calls simply " Mrs." 
" I return Mrs. my kind thanks," he says, " for what you 
sent me by George " (his young friend in the Castle, presum- 
ably) : " and am ashamed you should put yourself to such 

* Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 10. 

f Diary of Brodie of Brodie, p. 384. Spalding Club. 

% Veitch and Brysson, p. 500. 

§ Graham Dunlop MS 8. 

II ' Analccta,' vol. iii. p. 51. 



III.] IMPRISONMENT. 47 

trouble. You are George's great favourite. How you have 
charmed him I know not." 

To his sister he communicates the interesting intelligence, 
" I intend, if the Lord will, to take that purge upon Monday 
which the Dr. prescribed : you may therefore send up, then, 
what is requisite for it : and upon Tuesday, if health permit, 
and the Lord will, I intend to take the air, and shall be glad 
to see you at a distance. Farewell. Send up my clean linens." 
The other letter is dated "May 21, 79," and is a short 
note, explaining that he should have written sooner had he 
known of "a sure bearer," and containing nothing worth 
copying. The only other hints we have of any of the circum- 
stances of his incarceration, are in the Life by McCormick. 
McCormick, however, with an inexplicable ignorance or care- 
lessness, passes over this first imprisonment without any 
notice ; but mentions facts in connection with Carstares' 
second imprisonment, which, investigation shows, properly 
belong to the first. 

Carstares distinctly states, in his own letter to Wodrow,* 
that when he was sent down to Scotland in 1083 he was con- 
fined, not in the Castle of Edinburgh, but in the Tolbooth, 
until his trial. Daring the trial itself, it would appear that 
he was kept in the Castle ; his " examination," as published 
by the Privy Council, bearing that he was at the time of his 
undergoing it, in prison there. Immediately after his trial, 
however, he was sent away from Edinburgh, and after a 
confinement at Stirling,! was set at liberty. In 1684, there- 
fore, he could not have been in Edinburgh Castle for more 
than two or three weeks; and the incidents which follow 
necessarily belong to the only period of prolonged confine- 
ment which he passed there, that of the imprisonment which 
began in 1675. 

One day, " not long after his commitment," says McCor- 
mick^ a boy about twelve years of age, son of the Lieutenant- 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. 96, aud Graham Dunlop Collection. 
t Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 101. 
% McCormick, p. 22. 



48 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Governor of the Castle, rambling through the courts of the 
fortress, came to the grate of the cell in which Carstares was 
immured. As the boy looked in, the prisoner came forward 
and spoke to him, and that in so kind and pleasant a manner 
that the youngster was " captivated ;" and resolved to come 
back and pay him another visit. He did so, again and again ; 
and at last became Carstares' devoted ally and companion ; 
w 7 ould sit by his cell grate for hours, " lamenting his unhappy 
situation, and telling him a thousand stories to divert him." 
He brought him little presents of food, and the more sub- 
stantial favours of paper, pen, and ink ; and when Carstares 
had used these to write his letters, the boy would come at 
night and take his letters to their destination himself. Pro- 
bably by this little lad's help, he got some books also to 
beguile his loneliness. Among them was a copy of De 
Thou's 138 books of the ' Historia sui Temporis.' This he 
read over no less than three several times, and his mind was, 
by this process, so imbued with the historian's classic style and 
idiom, that by the time he ended his perusals he found that 
he could think and speak in Latiu, as readily as in English. 

At last the order of release arrived. It is preserved in 
the Graham Dunlop collection, and is endorsed in Mrs. Car- 
stares' handwriting. " This is my dear's releasement out of 
prison." It runs thus : " Charles K. Eight trusty and well 
beloved councillor, we greet you well : whereas by an order of 
the 26th day of February, 167-f-, we did require the then 
Lieutenant Governor of that our Castle to receive the 
body of William Carstares into his safe and sure custody, 
and to keep him a close prisoner until he should receive 
further orders concerning him from us, or our Privy Council 
of that our ancient Kingdom ; and whereas now we are 
graciously pleased to extend our compassion towards him, not- 
withstanding of the sure information we did then receive of 
his tampering in several matters tending to the disturbance 
of the public peace, it is our will and pleasure, and we do 
hereby authorize and require you, to set the said William 
Carstares at liberty, whereof (we hope) he will make so good 



III.] DRUMCLOG AND BO Til WELL. 49 

use for the future, as we shall have no cause to debar him of 
the privileges of our other free subjects ; and of this we require 
you to give him notice, to the end he may be sensible that if 
at any time hereafter he shall be found guilty of the like 
transgressions, he may expect that the abuse of this our 
Royal clemency will produce the most severe effects of our 
displeasure against him, that may be consistent with the 
laws of that our Kingdom. And so we bid you farewell. 
Given at our Court of Windsor Castle the 29th day of July, 
1679, and of our reign the 31st year. By His Majesty's 
Command. To our trusty and well beloved Councillor, John 
Drummond of Lundin, Lieutenant-Governor of our Castle of 
Edinburgh." 

The Lieutenant-Governor has endorsed the paper, " This 
is the true copy of His Majesty's gracious letter to me 
ordering the enlargement of Mr. William Carstares. In 
obedience to which I upon the receipt thereof immediately 
released him, J. Drummond." 

By this time the troubles of the country had reached a crisis. 
The rigid Covenanting party, embittered by their narrow 
hatred of the " indulged," no less than of the Prelatists, 
and becoming more and more deeply imbued with political 
disaffection, had broken out into actual rebellion. They can 
hardly be condemned for having done so. The prelates and 
their party were inconceivably mean, selfish, and unprincipled. 
The indulged ministers could not move hand or foot to seek 
the reform of the Church or the abatement of oppression, in 
peaceable and constitutional ways. The Parliament, which 
should have defended the liberties of the subject, was the 
time-serving creature of an insolent and unbridled despotism. 
The only hope of salvation lay in " the sword of the Lord 
and of Gideon." 

For some time past, the people who came to the conven- 
ticles had carried arms. In this summer of 1679 they began 
to use them. Closely following the unhappy murder of Sharp 
came the skirmish of Drumclog, on the 1st, and the more 
serious engagement of Bothwell, on the 22 nd, of June. 

E 



50 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

The Covenanters had drawn the sword, and they perished 
by the sword. The wild and jealous fanaticism, which filled 
their noisy camp in Clydesdale with the divided counsels and 
political harangues of their preachers and leaders,* had not 
enlisted a force sufficiently strong and disciplined to gain any 
permanent advantage over the King's troops. But the rising 
had been formidable enough to show the government the 
danger of driving a people to despair. 

There was now a noble opportunity of trying the effects of 
that policy of conciliation, which is always most effective 
when a powerful victor shows clemency, at the very time 
when the vanquished have good reason to expect revenge. 
The influence of Monmouth, who commanded at Both well 
Bridge, was all on the side of leniency. The general policy 
of the Privy Council, however, was not reversed ; and the 
indemnity granted was partial and short-lived. The prisoners 
actually taken at Bothwell were treated with great brutality ;| 
though an Act of Indemnity was extended to all others who 
had been at the battle, on condition of their promising never 
again to appear in arms against the King, or to attend a con- 
venticle; and a new indulgence, allowing ministers not 
hitherto indulged, to officiate in private houses,J was an- 
nounced. Some also of those who had been forfeited, or in 
prison, were set at liberty ; § and on the 16th of July the 
King wrote to Leighton, who, having quitted his episcopate, 
was living quietly at Broadhurst, his sister's house in Sussex, 
" I am resolved to try what clemency can prevail upon such 
in Scotland as will not conform to the government of the 
Church there ; for effecting of which design, I desire that you 
may go down to Scotland with your first conveniency." || 

* Veitcli and Brysson, pp. 455 and 471. 

f Most of them were penned up in the Grey Friars' Churchyard, under 
the open sky, fed on bread and water, and kept there in filth, hunger, and 
nakedness, till near the end of November, when 300 were shipped as slaves 
for the American plantations. Fountainhall's ' Historical Notices/ vol. i. 
p. 246. Bannatyne Club. 

% Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 118. § Fountainhall, vol. i. p. 229. 

II ' Pearson's Life,' Leighton's Works, vol. i. p. 148. 



III.] CABSTABES LIBEBATED. 51 

But Leighton never went. The Duke of Monmouth's in- 
fluence declined ; few accepted the indemnity ; the indul- 
gence was cancelled ; and the hunt for " rebels " and " con- 
venticlers " was again begun by the fierce soldiers of Dalzell, 
that persecutor who, according to the belief of the harassed 
outlaws, was in league with the devil, and cast no shadow as 
his gaunt figure crossed the light of day.* 

During this spasmodic fit of clemency, however, Carstares 
was liberated. He does not appear to have stayed long in 
Edinburgh after his liberation ; nor was he likely to wish to 
remain in Scotland. His being there might have added to 
his father's existing embarrassments. Besides, he could do 
no good at home. He could not exercise his ministry, as no 
indulgence was extended to those who had received Presby- 
terian orders since the restoration of Episcopacy. He could 
not conform to an establishment which was based on in- 
justice, and in league with a corrupt and unrighteous tyranny, 
and which his political foresight told him must ere long be 
overthrown. He could not ally himself with the fanatics — 
the "True Presbyterian, Anti-prelatic, Anti-Erastian, and Per- 
secuted party," who, with their hair-splitting and intolerance, 
their solemn excommunications, and handing over to the devil 
of the Xing and the other troublers of Israel, and their uncom- 
promising and extravagant "Sanquhar declaration," were 
running to all the madness of extremes.! The first distinct 
trace of him, after his liberation, is afforded by two letters 
written while on a journey to Ireland, during the winter. He 
had kindred in Ireland, his mother being niece of Viscount 
Claneboy, of that kingdom ; and the uncle with whom he 
savs he travelled thither was probably either James Mure, 
of Ballybregach, or Hamilton of Halcraig, who were both 
Lord Claneboy's nephews.J In a short note dated "from 

* Pamphlets in Advocates' Library, M. 44, xiii. 

f Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 212. 

% Mrs. Carstares' mother was Jean Hamilton, daughter of Hans Hamil- 
ton, vicar of Dunlop. Her brother was created Lord Claneboy, and his son 
Earl of Clanbrassil. 

E 2 



52 WILLIAM CAB STARES. [Chap. 

the Port, Dec. 29, 1679," he tells his sister Sarah, who was 
then at Glanderston, that he and his uncle are waiting 
for a fair wind to set sail. "When you return to Edin- 
burgh," he says, " pray wait upon the Lady Lundin " (wife 
of the Governor of the Castle) " and Mrs. Law, as oft as 
you can." 

The next letter is dated " Port Patrick, Feb. 2, 1680 ;" and 
it would seem to imply that he had not yet made out his 
Irish visit. He says, " My dearest sisters, — -You see I include 
you in one letter, being equally dear to me. It is like you 
did not suspect to have heard from me after so long a time 
except from Bally bregach,* or some other of Katherine's old 
Irish habitations ; but we are much crossed with contrary 
winds ; and what design God may have in it I know not, but 
I hope it shall be found for advantage. I hope you will not 
forget the obligations I am under to friends in the Castle ; 
but I do expect your visits to them will be frequent, for I 
know the lady, when once acquaint with you, will be free and 
obliging in her carriage to you, and will take it kindly that 
you divert her sometimes with seeing of her. And for worthy 
Mrs. Law, I cannot recommend a better companion to you. 
Present my best respects to her, and to Mr. Lindsay, to whom 
I know you will be no strangers. I forget not kind Mrs. 
Mure, to whom I intend not to write anything till in Ireland. 

You see I use you as sisters, when I trouble you 

with nothing else but what will give you some pains ; but 
trouble you as I will, I hope you shall always find me a kind 
brother. The Lord himself be your portion. I am your 
affectionate brother, Will. Carstares." 

In September of this year, we find him in London. " I 
desire that your concern for me," he writes on 30th Sept. 
to Sarah, " may be kept within bounds, lest God be pro- 
voked to order providences that shall be vexing to us 

* Ballybregach, in the County Down, was the residence of James Mure, 
second son of the laird of Glanderston, and brother of Mrs. John Carstares. 
He had served in earlier life in a regiment of horse under his uncle Lord 
Claneboy. Caldwell Papers, part i. p. 25. 



III.] AT THEOBALDS. 53 

both." Whether he had got into any new difficulties does 
not appear ; but shortly after this he undertook regular duty 
in London. 

The nonconformists of England were not exposed to the 
implacable persecution, which raged against their brethren in 
Scotland. The Declaration of Indulgence issued on the 
King's own authority, in 1672, which gave them permission 
to worship without molestation, had been revoked at the in- 
stance of Parliament ; but the liberty which that declaration 
promised had, in practice, been extended to them for several 
years. Carstares formed a connection with a Presbyterian 
congregation near London, and became their minister. This 
congregation met at Theobalds, about twelve miles from 
London, in the parish of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire. Theo- 
balds, once a favourite residence of King James, had been 
dismantled by the Parliament in 1650, and was no longer a 
royal palace ; but it seems to have been a favourite resort 
of the nonconformists. Among others, Richard Cromwell 
had sought retirement in its neighbourhood; and lived 
there from 1680, till his death, going by the name of Mr. 
Clarke.* 

The letter which follows, is unaddressed, but must have 
been meant for his cousin and brother-in-law, Dunlop, 

"Theobalds, June 14. 81. 
" Dear Brother, — I received yours with my dear sister's post- 
script, and do easily excuse your former silence, provided I may 
for the future have long epistles from you both, as to all your petty 
concerns and those of our relations, and a particular account of 
public affairs at the sitting of our parliament, — to which you shall 
have what returns I can make. I have some thoughts of settling 
here while I am in England, Providence much clearing my way, 
and the kindness that the people seem to have for me encouraging 
me. You may tell your wife that I believe nothing that she says 
concerning the deference she pretends to have had to my judgment : 
but that I suppose she loved you so that had you but delayed ti 
little longer, she would have been a suitor to you, — tho' I know 

* ' National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland.' 



54 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

not upon what account she should have been so much in love with 
such a sotchell drunken faced little fellow, but she hath taken one 

of her own size, and she always longed for one of a ,* and 

indeed in so far she hath gained her desire, but now you must both 
make the best bargain you can. I think I see poor Glanderston,f 
hovering about the doors of Pollock. Pray let me know what is 
come of him, for I wish him heartily well, but do not much pity 
him, being persuaded that he is beyond hazard of pining for his 
mistress. Disappointments may indeed make him gloom and look 
sour, (you see I am no affecter of English) but it will be hard to 
break his heart. I hear honest James hath at last come speed, — ■ 
but enough of this. Our confusions here are a-growing and seem 
not to be far from a height. 

" Sham plots are the great business of some, but God doth 
strangely detect them, though I am afraid they may some time take 
effect. 

" I salute kindly my dear sister, and know she will look upon 
this as written to herself. 

" Adieu, dear brother, 

" Your very affectionate brother W. C." 

On July 16 tli he writes to Sarah, avIio had been recently 
married to this cousin, William Dunlop, eldest son of the 
Kev. Alexander Dunlop, of Paisley, whose wife was Elizabeth 
Mure, sister of Mrs. John Carstares. Alexander Dunlop was 
a man of great eminence for piety, zeal, and learning. He 
had " great grace and a great gift of preaching; great learn- 
ing and a great gift of disputing and arguing ; and a great 
painfulness in reading and studying, and in all his minis- 
terial work."t He was turned out of his charge in 1662, 

* As far as I can make out, " gash gab " — words of rather untranslat- 
able Scottish significance : gash, sagacious, verging on the owlish type of 
sagacity ; gab, the mouth or utterance. 

f The cousin of Carstares already mentioned. He was born in 1654, 
and became proprietor of Glanderston on his father's death in 1658, and of 
Caldwell, on the death of his cousin in 1710. Pollock was the house of 
Maxwell of Auldhouse, or Pollock, in Renfrewshire. Glanderston's great- 
grand-aunt had married George Maxwell of Auldhouse ; and there was a 
close friendship between the families. Caldwell Papers, part i. introd. 
memoir. 

% ' Analccta,.' vol. iii. p. 17. 



III.] WILLIAM DUNLOP. 55 

and being too weak to travel over sea to Holland, along with 
Mac Ward, Livingstone, and others then expatriated, he was 
detained in confinement at Culross. After the disaster of 
Bullion Green he never held up his head. His friends, 
visiting him, would find him "sitting with his gown among 
the ashes, in a most forlorn and dejected-like condition ;" and 
his landlord-jailer, who lodged above him, heard him sigh- 
ing and groaning in the night, as if his heart would break.* 
He died before he was fifty, at Borrowstowness, in 1667.1 
" As for Will," he said before he died, " he fills all my calms ; 
he answers all my expectations.''^ The father's estimate is 
not belied by the character and history of the son, of whom 
we shall often hear as we proceed. He had already been in- 
volved, though slightly, in the troubles of his time and 
country. While acting as Lord Cochran's chaplain, in 1678, 
he had been summoned before the Committee of Privy Coun- 
cil, for officiating without an Episcopal licence, and had 
thought it safest to absent himself. § Immediately before 
the battle of Both well Bridge, he reappears on the scene, 
bearing to the insurgent camp a " Declaration of the oppressed 
Protestants now in arms in Scotland," which was in part his 
own composition, and which expressed the principles and 
aims of the moderate party of Presbyterians, of which he was 
a zealous member. This paper, which, avoiding all fanatical 
denunciations and " testimonies," temperately stated that re- 
course to arms was taken simply for the purpose of securing 
Protestantism and Presbytery in Scotland ; disengaging the 
King from Popish plots and wicked counsellors ; and exclud- 

* This worthy man indulged, after a fashion not uncommon until very- 
recent times, in a kind of groan — " a holy groan," his friend Mr. Peebles 
called it — at the end of a specially urgent sentence or appeal. Mr. Buckle 
(vol. ii. p. 371) refers to this as a proof that there was " hardly any kind 
of resource which these men " (the Scotch ministers) " disdained." It was, 
no doubt, a mere natural ejaculation, which may be heard in Gaelic 
preaching to this day. 

f ' Analecta/ vol. iii. p. 21. 

t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 149. 

§ Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 419. 



56 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 

ing the Duke of York frorn the succession, was violently 
rejected by the Covenanters' Council of War.* 

Dunlop again vanishes from the stage ; and re-enters, at the 
date of this letter, as the bridegroom of Sarah Carstares. 

" Theobalds' July 16, 81. 

" Dear Sister, — I had yours, and was not a little refreshed to 
hear that you were so well pleased with the change of your habita- 
tion ; but it seems a good husband will make any place pleasant, 
and make all other friends to be forgot ; —but, sister, it is like I may 
be even with you, and get that which shall put you out of your 
room which now you take up so largely in my thoughts, tho' at 
present I know not how, or who, it shall be. The Lord hath dealt 
well with me in bringing me to this place, where I have, as yet, what 
satisfaction I can in reason desire, the people of which I have the 
charge being, most of them, serious Christians so far as I can judge ; 
and God is pleased yet to give me their kindness. But nothing can 
make me forget Scotland, or, I hope, shall detain me from it when I 
shall have a fair opportunity for returning, — which I long for. 

" I remember kindly my brother, and do expect to hear frequently 
from him. I am hopeful that as I have heard you are a wife, so to 
hear you are a mother. Farewell, dear sister. 

" Thine own W. C." 

The " fair opportunity " for returning to Scotland, which he 
expected with all the home-sickness of a " kindly Scot," did 
not arrive. In this year the forbearance, hitherto shown to 
the nonconformists in England, was superseded by a severity 
which is described by Howe as a " dreadful storm of persecu- 
tion, that destroyed not a small number of lives in gaols, and 
ruined multitudes of families."! Nonconformist pastors were 
imprisoned, and congregations broken up. A Tory reaction, 
following the violent excitements of the Popish plot and the 
debates on the Exclusion Bill, emboldened the government to 
enforce " with extreme rigour,"J the dormant laws against 
dissenters. 

Carstares continued, however, to " abide the pelting of the 
pitiless storm ;" and not only so, but fortified himself against 

* Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 96. f Calamy, vol. i. p. 88. 

X Macaulay, vol. i. chap. 2. 



III.] MARRIAGE. 57 

the depressing influences of persecution by getting married, in 
the very middle of it. His marriage certificate, which is in 
Mr. Feme's possession, bears that on June 6, 1682, " William 
Carstares of Chesthunt, in the County of Hertford, gent., 
and Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Kekewich of Trehawk 
in the County of Cornwall, Esq. : were lawfully married, 
according to the Church of England in the parish church of 
Ravnham, in the County of Essex," by Samuel Kekewich, 
Vicar. The Kekewickes are an ancient and honourable 
family ;* and the match was an equal one as regarded birth 
and position. Mrs. Carstares was a little older than her 
husband. The politics of the house appear to have leaned 
to Whiggery and Liberalism ; aud a Miss Kekewich had be- 
come the wife of Speaker Lenthall, in the days of the Long 
Parliament. 

Whether the designation of Carstares in the marriage cer- 
tificate as " Gent.," indicates that he had for a time laid aside 
his clerical title and duties ; or is, as Mr. Ferrie opines, simply 
a mark of the officiating vicar's Episcopalian arrogance, it is 
impossible to decide. Perhaps he had by this time found it 
hazardous to continue to officiate as a clergyman, and was 
therefore content to figure in the register of Raynham as a 
layman. If he thought it well to do so, he was not a man to 
stickle about a name. He could hardly deem it altogether 
prudent to remain with his wife in England ; and, no doubt, 
would have retired to Scotland had he dared ; but persecu- 
tion raged there with a steady and relentless violence un- 
known south of the Tweed. A nonconformist fugitive from 
England would as soon have thought of running for shelter to 
Scotland, as a Spanish heretic of seeking his City of Refuge 
in Seville. 

The Duke of York was now his Majesty's Commissioner in 
his ancient kingdom. The Parliament, which assembled at 
his summons in July, signalised itself by the passing of two 

* The late representative of it, S. Trehawke Kekewich, Esq., M.P., in- 
formed me he possessed a family history extending back for one thousand 
five hundred years. 



58 WILLIAM CAB STARES. [Chap. 

Acts ; that anent the succession to the Crown, and that anent 
Religion and the Test. 

The first asserted the Jus Divinum, with a fervour and ful- 
ness that rather resembled the exuberant loyalty of a cavalier 
club than the staid decorum of an Act of Parliament ; and 
declared that " no difference of religion, nor no Act of Parlia- 
ment, made or to be made, can alter, or divert, the right of 
succession."* 

The other imposed on every person in public employment 
in the kingdom, from the Lord Chancellor to the sub-col- 
lector of customs, from the Archbishop to the youngest curate, 
— from the Commander-in-Chief to the rank and file, a long 
and complicated Oath or Test, designed to assert with a more 
rigid exactness than hitherto the royal prerogative, and the 
abnegation on the subject's part of every claim to civil 
liberty, or freedom of conscience^ The Test, although the 
bulk of the Episcopal clergy " went into it very glibly,"$ was 
more than the already strained consciences of some of them 
could bear. " About eighty of the most learned and pious of 
them," led by Laurence Charteris, after Leighton the wisest 
and most liberal of the Episcopalians, left their parishes 
rather than comply with the terms of the new Act. Fletcher 
of Saltoun, Sir James Dalrymple of Stair the President of 
the Court of Session, Lord Belhaven, and others of high 
position and influence, inveighed against the Test, or pointed 
out its oppressiveness and inconsistencies^ Several of the 
bishops and clergy issued " explanations " of the oath. The 
Earl of Argyll drew up an " explication " of the sense in 
which he would take it, " in so far as it was consistent with 
itself and the Protestant religion ;" and finding that this pro- 
mised to bring him into trouble, he followed it with an " ex- 
planation of his explication," || which, however, did not save 

* Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 291. 

f See the Test in Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 295. 

t Ibid. p. 310. 

§ Burnet, vol. ii. p. 309 ; Dairy mple's ' Memoirs,' vol. i. p. 6, &c. 

|| See in Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 317. 



III.] EXODUS FROM SCOTLAND. 59 

him from a charge of high treason, and a sentence of death, 
only evaded by a timely escape from prison. 

This course of legislation was not alleviated by any relaxa- 
tion of the long continued severity of the executive. The 
whips of Lauderdale became scorpions in the more delicate, 
bat more ruthless, hands of the Duke of York. Ever since 
Bothwell Brig the victims of the Privy Council had received 
no mercy.* 

In all the circumstances, Carstares could hardly venture to 
take np his abode in Scotland, although, as we shall see, he 
probably paid it a short visit. An exodus from Scotland 
had, in fact, begun. Argyll got out of Edinburgh Castle in 
disguise, and fled for his life. Dalrymple of Stair, driven 
from the bench, and threatened with prosecution, also made 
his escape from the land of bondage. He was followed by 

* The most notable example was Hackston, of Eatkillet, who had been 
present, though not as an active agent, at Sharp's murder, and who was 
afterwards taken in arms. Although covered with wounds, he was carried 
to Edinburgh. At the Watergate he was bound on a bare-backed horse, 
with his face to the tail. The hangman led the horse, and carried on a 
halbert the head of Hackston's friend Cameron. Behind the horse came a 
boy carrying another head in a sack, and three fellow-prisoners on foot, 
bareheaded, and with their hands tied to an iron "goad." Hackston was 
conducted to the Tolbooth, and after trial, condemned. The programme of 
his execution was written out the day before his trial ended. It was 
carried out with every attention to detail. He was drawn on a hurdle to 
the scaffold. There his right hand was cut off. After a pause, the hang- 
man began to operate upon the left hand, and as he had taken a long time 
to get the other off, he, at the prisoner's request, struck on the joint of the 
wrist, and effected the amputation more quickly. He then, having adjusted 
the rope, drew Hackston up to the top of the gallows by means of a block 
and pulley, and suddenly slackening the rope, let him fall to the platform 
with his whole weight. This was done thrice. He then hoisted him again, 
and when " choked a little/' lowered him till within easy reach, cut open 
his breast, dug out the heart, showed it to the people, saying, " Here is the 
heart of a traitor," and threw it into a fire which had been kindled on the 
scaffold. The body was then beheaded, quartered, and distributed to St. 
Andrews, Leith, Glasgow, and Burntisland— the head being fixed on the 
Netherbow. These particulars are vouched by Wodrow_and other trust- 
worthy writers. The programme of the execution stands in the records of 
the Council, of which two " right reverend fathers in God " were members. 



60 WILLIAM CAB ST ABES. [Chap. 

Fletcher of Saltoun. Holland was still the natural asylum 
for these fugitives. The Prince of Orange had paid a visit to 
his uncle the King in the summer of 1681, and probably Car- 
stares would not lose the opportunity of paying his court to 
his former patron, now more powerful than ever. Whether an 
interview with William influenced his movements or not, we 
have no means of knowing ; nor can I discover with any cer- 
tainty, the date of his return to Holland. He did return, 
however, after his marriage. Early in 1683 he was at his 
old quarters, Utrecht. Argyll, who escaped from Edinburgh 
in December 1681, had after a sojourn in London, found 
a temporary home in the same city. Stair, Lord Loudon, 
Lord Melville, Sir Patrick Hume, afterwards Earl of March- 
mont, and others of the Scottish nobility, were there. Pringle 
of Torwoodlee, Denham of W 7 est Shields, James Steuart, the 
author of the ' Accompt,' with many besides, spent their 
exile, and waited for the dawn of better days, at Utrecht* 

We have no correspondence of Carstares to guide us at this 
period ; and McCormick is so vague, and, as usual, so desti- 
tute of dates, that he is of little help. From the end of 1681 
to the beginning of 1683 the data on which we can found in- 
ductions are very scanty. The outline of Carstares' history, 
however, which has just been given, is, according to my best 
judgment, correct. 

* Coltness Collections, Maitland Club, pp. 77-9. 



IV.] 61 



CHAPTER IV. 

Plots and Plotters — Shaftesbury — Monmouth — Russell — Sidney — Argyll — 
Baillie — Great Whig Plot — Rye-house Plot — Ferguson — Discovery — 
Carstares seized, sent to Scotland. 

" I have been a conspirator all my life," were the words of 
the great statesman who regenerated and united modern 
Italy. There are times when honest men, who love truth 
and freedom, and who prefer realities to superstitions, cannot 
but be plotters. Where open warfare with an intolerable 
evil is impossible, recourse must be had to secret craft ; and 
the citadel which cannot be stormed must be approached 
through trench and mine. In the latter years of Charles II. 
absolute power, oppression, illegality, and treachery in the 
monarch, had grown to such a height that resistance became 
the duty of the subject. Although the University of Oxford 
might solemnly condemn as " repugnant to holy Scripture," 
and " destructive of the public peace, the laws of nature, and 
bonds of human society," * the propositions that if lawful 
governors become tyrants they forfeit their right of govern- 
ment ; that the King has but a co-ordinate power with the 
Lords and Commons ; that there lies on the subject no obliga- 
tion to passive obedience when the ruler breaks the law ; — 
the principles of Buchanan's ' De Jure Eegni apud Scotos,' 
and Rutherford's ' Lex Eex ' (which Oxford ordered to be 
burnt), and of the works of Milton, Baxter, and Hobbes 
(' De Cive '), had made progress among all enlightened men. 
The day for the doctrine of passive obedience was rapidly 
drawing to its close. The authority which had demanded 

* See Decree of University, of date 21st of July, 1683, in Wodrow, 
vol. iii. p. 506. 



62 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

that obedience was so nefarious that it supplied the strongest 
of all arguments against its own dogma. In Scotland its 
divine right proved its vitality through a deliberate system of 
religious persecution, carried on with a minute and painstaking 
attention to every artifice and detail of brutality. In Eng- 
land, where the public life had long been more orderly as 
well as more free, and where there existed the elements of a 
sturdier general resistance than in Scotland, the same ex- 
tremes of inhumanity were not attempted. But in England, 
hardly less than in the north, the patience of the sound 
Protestants and of the liberal party was worn out. A long 
course of dishonourable and disastrous government had tried 
it to the utmost. The disgraceful and profitless Dutch wars, 
the shameless subservience to France, the persecution of the 
nonconformists, the invasion of the rights of the city of 
London, the confiscation of the charters, the provision for a 
Popish succession, the disuse of parliaments, the profligacy 
and extravagance of the Court — all combined to alienate 
the loyalty of the wisest and best of Charles' English sub- 
jects. If the country was to be governed in the future, as it 
had been since the Eestoration, they could expect nothing but 
a growing subversion of liberty, whether religious or civil, a 
deepening corruption of manners, and a thorough degenera- 
tion of the people. "An entire revolution of government" 
was looked to as the only remedy.* 

By the time at which we find Carstares again at Utrecht 
— early in 1683 — the general discontent and desire for a 
change of government had begun to move through those 
stages of intrigue which precede revolution ; and he had 
been intimately associated with the movement. 

There was a great Whig plot, which, had it been success- 
fully carried, must ultimately have produced a revolution. 
There was a lesser plot, which designed the seizure, or assas- 
sination, of the King and the Duke. The one is associated 
with the name of Shaftesbury. The other is known as the 
Eye-house Plot. The two were essentially distinct ; although 
* Palrymple, vol. i. part i. book i. 



IV.] GREAT WHIG PLOT. 63 

it has been the trick of such writers as Sprat, the hireling- 
historian of the Conspiracies, to represent them as closely 
and intricately united. Ferguson, " the Plotter," who lived 
in an atmosphere heavy with treason and intrigue, tried to 
connect the designs of the greater revolutionists — who used 
him as their instrument — with the machinations of the 
inferior conspirators, who acted under his malign influence ; 
but he failed in the attempt. There is no evidence to prove 
that the Kye-house Plot was, in any way, countenanced by the 
party that acted with Shaftesbury, Eussell, or Argyll. 

Ever since the illness which had seized the King in the 
spring of 1681, Shaftesbury, 

" For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,"* 

had pressed on Monmouth, William, Lord Eussell, and others, 
the necessity of an armed resistance to the Duke of York's 
succession, in the event of the King's death. He was sus- 
pected and disliked by many of the brave and patriotic men, 
whom the wrongs of their country and the suppression of 
constitutional government had urged towards revolution ; 
but Lord Eussell, Lord Essex, Lord Gray, and Hampden, 
the grandson of the great Commoner, united their councils 
to his. Algernon Sidney alone, " who derived his blood 
from a long train of English nobles and heroes, and his 
sentiments from the patriots and heroes of antiquity," stood 
aloof, and refused to ally his own designs with those of the 
Earl.f It was resolved to promote an insurrection, without 
waiting for the death of the King. Shaftesbury, who averred 
that in the City he had " 10,000 brisk boys, ready to start 
up at a motion of his finger," % was to raise the standard of 
revolt in London. Monmouth and Eussell engaged to secure, 
through their friends in the country, the support of the pro- 
vinces. The negotiations and arrangements, preparatory to 

* Dryden, ' Absalom and Achitophel.' 

f Dalrymple, vol. i. part i. p. 20. 

% Ibid. Hume, vol. viii. p. 176. Edition of 1825. 



64 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

this rising, went on all through the year 1682. Again and 
again the fiery Shaftesbury pressed for immediate action, 
and when met with the cautious excuses of his allies, who 
did not think the right hour had come, he overwhelmed 
them with threats and reproaches. At length, in November 
1682, stung with rage and chagrin at a fresh delay on the 
very eve of the outbreak he had planned, he quitted London 
and fled to Holland, where he soon afterwards died in the 
arms of Ferguson and Walcot, who only, of all his coadjutors, 
kept by him to the last* His flight and death loosened the 
hold of the conspiracy on the city of London, and it became 
all the more necessary for its managers to gain new aid 
elsewhere. Branches of the plot were spread more widely 
through the English counties, and communications with the 
Scottish malcontents, which had begun during Shaftesbury's 
life, now assumed a more definite character. A council of 
six managed the affairs of the conspiracy. The six were 
Monmouth, Eussell, Essex, Howard, Hampden, and Algernon 
Sidney. Monmouth, through his marriage with the heiress 
of Buccleuch, and his own lenient policy while in the North, 
had acquired great influence and popularity in Scotland, and 
had been careful to cultivate the friendship of Argyll, when 
that nobleman was hiding in London on his way to Holland. 
Argyll seems to have formed a project of insurrection almost 
as soon as he reached London, and it had been agreed between 
him and the Earl of Granard that a simultaneous rising should 
be organised in Ireland and Scotland, Granard to lead the 
one and Argyll the other, and 5000 trained Irish soldiers to 
be sent over to the west of Scotland as soon as Argyll should 
land there. This design, however, came to nought, and Argyll 
had carried his baffled plans with him to Utrecht,f when the 
English conspirators bethought themselves of securing his 
adherence to their scheme of a general insurrection. 

It is at this point, in the winter of 1682-3, that Carstares 
appears on the scene. He had been in Holland during the 
summer of 1682, and when he returned to Britain had left 
* Dalrymple, ut supra. f Veitch and Biysson, p. 142. 



IV.] TEE NEGOCIATIOXS. 65 

his wife there with some of his sisters beside her. After 
this he had, it should appear, hazarded a brief visit to Scot- 
land,* where he found his brother-in-law, William Dunlop, 
and other gentlemen, proposing to escape from the intoler- 
able evils of life at home by an emigration to ■Carolina. Sir 
John Cochrane, and Sir George Campbell (son of Campbell 
of Cessnock) had been negociating with the King for a grant 
of land, which they expected to obtain on moderate terms.t 
The existence of this negociation about Carolina, in which 
many of the English proprietors of lands in the colony were 
interested, afforded a favourable pretext for establishing con- 
fidential relations between the English and Scottish malcon- 
tents. While Dunlop and his friends attended to the business 
of the emigration (and eventually went out and settled in 
Carolina), Carstares, Baillie of Jerviswood, Fletcher of Sal- 
toun, and other patriots, prosecuted in London their corres- 
pondence with the revolutionary party. J The communications 
with Argyll were carried on through James Steuart and Car- 
stares. The Earl heartily concurred in the proposals of an 
English insurrection, and undertook to head a similar revolt 
in Scotland, provided the English party would assist him with 
£30,000 in money and a force of 1000 cavalry. Without 
these, he thought he could not venture, with any hope of 
success, to raise the West of Scotland. There was great 
difficulty in the way of meeting these demands, and, un- 
fortunately for the character and the fate of the conspiracy, 

* 1 infer this from McCormick, and also from what Sir Andrew Forrester 
writes to Lord Aberdeen on the 14th of August, 1683. " Carstares/' he 
says, " stiffly denies knowledge of the plot, and positively says that when 
set at liberty from Edinburgh Castle, it was on no condition of banishment 
from Scotland." Aberdeen Letters, Spalding Club, p. 152. 

f " Towards the end of the year, the King signified to the Council that 
Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, and Sir George Campbell had come up 
from several of his subjects in Scotland, as commissioners to deal with 
him about a settlement in Carolina, and recommends to the Council to 
encourage them therein." Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 368. 

% Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 36S. Dalrymple, vol. i. part i. book i. McCor- 
mick, p. 9. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 354. 

F 



66 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

the help of Ferguson — who, as Shaftesbury's former agent, 
had ready access to the wealthy City malcontents— was in- 
voked. He became again associated with the plot ; but 
even with his assistance no promise could be given to Argyll 
for a larger sum than £10,000. 

Carstares, in his dealings with Ferguson, soon discerned that 
the latter secretly harboured schemes of a very different order 
from those of the chief plotters. Ferguson threw out hints of 
the advantage of saving the lives of thousands by the sacrifice 
of two, and tried to discover how far Carstares and the other 
Scots would be likely to go along with an assassination plot. 
The disgraceful suggestions were indignantly repudiated. 
Carstares told " the plotter," once for all, that when he en- 
gaged in these transactions, he thought he had to do with 
men of honour and of public spirit ; that he and his friends 
confined their views to the obtaining of a free Parliament, 
redress of notorious public grievances, and the exclusion of 
the Duke of York ; that they felt they were justified in an 
armed demand for those constitutional remedies for the ills 
of the State, which had been denied to their peaceable re- 
monstrances ; but that, as men and Christians, they refused 
to listen to any proposal of an attempt upon the life of the 
King or his brother, and that if Ferguson wished to find 
accomplices in such a plot, he might go to the fanatics in the 
wilds of Scotland, but must not come to them. The idea of 
assassination was never again mooted, and Carstares, believing 
it to be the offspring solely of the plotter's own restless and 
unscrupulous brain, did not altogether withdraw from such 
intercourse with him as he deemed to be necessary in the 
interests of Argyll.* These interests, however, seemed to 
languish. There was no readiness to guarantee the money 
wanted, and there appeared to be a disposition to concen- 
trate the insurrection in England, and to include in the 
programme the overthrow of the monarchy and the esta- 
blishment of a commonwealth — schemes with which Argyll 

* McCormick, pp. 10-12. Very confused, as usual, as to sequence of 
events and dates. 



IV.] THE NEGOCIATIONS. 67 

and the Scots would never concur.* In the course of a few 
weeks Carstares learned from Shephard, a wine merchant in 
the City, in whose house the plotters often met, that Sidney- 
was wholly averse to any union with Argyll. Sidney was at 
bottom a republican, and he suspected that the Earl was too 
much attached to the existing constitution in Church and 
State to be a hearty rebel. 

In face of all these difficulties, judging that his presence 
in London was of no use, Carstares crossed over to Holland 
and joined Argyll, Stair, Lord Loudon, and James Steuart, 
at Utrecht. Many and long were the consultations they held. 
Argyll was eager to cross to Scotland, if only he could get 
his cavalry and his £30,000. Stair was very doubtful of the 
wisdom and the probable issue of the attempt. Steuart also 
was understood to be opposed to it, although he guided the 
conspiracy, as far as he could, with sage and moderate 
counseLf At length a basis of feasible co-operation with the 
English faction was agreed on, and Carstares, fully accredited 
by the refugees, and in possession of an intricate cipher 
devised by Steuart for their correspondence, moved from 
Utrecht to London. 

On the day after his arrival he had an interview with 
Sir John Cochrane, and shortly afterwards another with 
Lord Kussell, from whom he found that, although Sidney 
no longer objected to alliance with Argyll, the subsidies 
required were as unattainable as ever. Eussell could pro- 
mise no more than £10,000 in money, and could hold out no 
certain prospect of being able to muster the 1000 horse. 
On this rock the whole plot seemed likely to go to pieces. 
In the hope of finding some available aid in Scotland, and 
also in order to prevent any premature movement there, it 
was resolved to send a messenger to the North to gain infor- 

* Sprat, p. 65. Sprat was employed by the King to write the history of 
the Plots ; and his book must be quoted with caution, as he admits that 
the statements he makes were altered to suit the royal wishes; cooked, in 
fact. See Howell's ' State Trials,' vol. ix. p. 358. 

t McCormick. Coltness Collections, p. 365. 

F 2 



l/ 



68 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

mation, and, if necessary, allay excitement. Kobert Martin, 
late clerk to the Justice Court, and one of the confederates, 
was deputed on this errand by a meeting of the Scotch con- 
federates held in Jerviswood's lodgings, which Lord Mel- 
ville, Jerviswood, Yeitch (who had assisted in Argyll's 
escape), and Carstares attended.* The Scots met often thus 
as they had opportunity ; but nothing in their own confer- 
ences, in their communications through Martin and others 
from Scotland, or in their correspondence with the English 
party, occurred to remove the standing difficulty as to the 
1000 horse and the £30,000. Carstares, on Argyll's behalf, 
was ready to accept £10,000, although the Earl had named 
the larger sum as the very least which he thought sufficient ; 
but even £10,000 seemed beyond the resources of the dis- 
affected in the City.t 

The Scots began to lose patience as excuse after excuse 
was offered for the deficiency of the money, and as their 
emissaries brought them tidings of the unabated oppression 
in the North. " The people of England do nothing but talk," 
said Jerviswood. " They should go more effectually about 
this business. The only way to secure the Protestant religion 
is for the King to suffer the Parliament to sit, and pass the 
Bill of Exclusion, which he might be led to do if the Parlia- 
ment took brisk measures with him." The English were 
taunted with being only fit for " fireside plotting," and the 
more eager of the Scots threatened that, for their part, they 
would rise, if there were more delays, " though they had 
nothing but their claws to fight with." J Some weeks passed 
in fruitless debate, proposals and counter proposals ; Carstares 
in the meantime becoming more and more suspicious of the 
tendency of the whole negociation, and of the probable result 
of the conspiracy. He, at last, resolved to try to put a stop 
to these ineffectual preliminaries, and to withdraw, along 
with his countrymen, if they would be ruled by him, from 

* ' State Trials,' vol. x. p. 673. 

t Sprat. 

% ' True and Plain Account of the Discoveries, &c.' Edinburgh, 1685. 



IV.] THE NEGOCIATIONS. 69 

an engagement which was sure to expose them to much 
danger, and yet do Scotland no good. Accordingly, a meet- 
ing of the Scotch conspirators was summoned, and attended 
by Melville, Baillie, Cochrane, and Sir Hugh and Sir George 
Campbell of Cessnock — father and son * Carstares addressed 
them, and pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of their 
present relations to the English cabal. Among the members 
of it, he said, were men, so divided in principle and aim, that 
combined action for a definite end was hopeless. Sidney the 
philosophical republican, Russell the constitutional Whig, 
Monmouth the vague aspirant to his uncle's crown — each 
with a different ideal, were not likely to concur in the same 
practical measures. They lost their time in chimerical pro- 
jects and idle debate, while every day the risk of detection 
grew, and they were losing sight of the only course that 
could really serve the country, which was instantly to resort 
to arms and to demand a free Parliament. Since the English 
were thus languid and irresolute, he advised that the Scottish 
confederates should consult their own safety, and instead of 
hurrying on a rebellion in Scotland (where recent tidings 
assured them many of the people were willing to revolt, but 
lacked the means of levying a successful war against the 
government), they should immediately arrest all prepara- 
tions there, until the English were thoroughly equipped for 
action, and should limit their further negotiations with the 
English to the announcement that the Scots would no longer 
act in concert with them, unless a definite plan of immediate 
action were adopted. This counsel was stoutly opposed by 
Baillie. That the English were slow to move and irresolute 
in their purposes seemed to him no reason why the Scots 
should not strike for liberty. If it was more difficult, it was 
also more glorious, to risk the enterprize alone. If they 
should succeed, as he believed they should, it would not be 
the first time, since the Stuarts came to the English throne, 

* The Campbells of Cessnock had an hereditary call to be zealous for the 
Protestant faith and liberty of conscience. George Campbell of Cessnock, 
in 1491, was one of the " Lollards of Kyle." Scots' ' Worthies/ p. 11, 



70 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

that Englishmen would owe their deliverance from oppres- 
sion to the Scots. The advice of Carstares, however, prevailed ; 
and an intimation, such as he suggested, was sent to the 
Council of Six. At the same time a letter was despatched 
to Scotland, to entreat the discontinuance of all warlike pre- 
parations.* 

Before the council had time to frame a reply, the English 
plot was discovered. The discovery is traceable to Ferguson's 
wild and violent machinations. 

During the whole progress of the great conspiracy, both 
while he was acting as Shaftesbury's aide-de-camp in the 
City, and since his patron's death, this unprincipled schemer 
had been the centre and moving spirit of an inferior cabal, 
whose object, as far as contrived by him, was the assassina- 
tion of the King and the Duke of York. He had, as we have 
seen, tried to engraft this rascally offshoot on the larger stem, 
and had been deterred by the indignant rebuke of Carstares ; 
but he had not abandoned his murderous design. He had 
even managed, by veiling the cowardly nature of the scheme, 
to enlist the aid of some men of high character and principle, 
who went in with his proposals to the extent of agreeing to 
an attack on the King's escort and seizure of his person, when 
an opportunity should appear. By what casuistry men, who 
would have recoiled from assassination, could justify their 
taking part in an attack on the royal cortege, which must 
necessarily endanger the King's life and render his murder, 
if such should be attempted, comparatively easy, it would be 
hard to determine. But nothing is stranger, in the annals of 
those disordered times, than the evident integrity of heart 
with which good and brave men resorted to questionable 
means, in their search after the civil and religious liberty, of 
which the government had robbed them. The spectacle of a 
government thoroughly immoral seems to have corrupted 
their own natural sense of right and wrong. Walcot and 
Kumbald were Ferguson's associates ; and yet they were men 
of religious character and self-sacrificing patriotism — very 
* McCormick. ' True and Plain Account.' 



IV.] BYEHOUSE PLOT. 71 

unlike the " profligate knave " " remarkable for saving him- 
self in all plots," on whom Dryden pours his blistering 

satire : — 

" Judas, that keeps the rebels' pension-purse ; 
Judas, that pays the treason writers' fee ; 
Judas, that well deserves his namesake's tree."* 

Walcot was a gallant and high-principled Irish officer. He 
had served with Cromwell, and had stood on guard at the 
scaffold of Charles I. Kumbald, whose one eye and bold 
spirit gained him the Dame of Hannibal among his comrades,! 
had also held a commission in the republican army. He was 
now a maltster. Sprat calls him a " desperate and bloody 
Kavaillac ;" but except that he offered his house for the use 
of Ferguson's conspirators, and that the saying is ascribed to 
him that " God did not make the greater part of mankind 
with saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, and 
some few booted and spurred to ride on the rest," there 
appears no reason for an epithet so harsh. 

In the cant phrase, which passed among Ferguson's con- 
federates, the two royal brothers were called " Slavery " and 
" Popery." These two were to be " lopped," and this, in 
Ferguson's mouth, meant assassinated.! There were many 
debates as to where and when the " lopping " should take 
place. Some of Ferguson's crew proposed to shoot the 
brothers from Bow steeple ; others to attack them in Saint 
James's Park, or at the bull feast in Eed Lion Fields, or in 
their barge on the river. The road between Hampton Court 
and Windsor, and that between London and Winchester, fre- 
quently travelled by the pair, were also suggested. At last 
Eumbald proposed that the conspirators should meet at his 
house, the Eye, about eighteen miles from London, in Hert- 
fordshire. Close to it ran the byroad from Bishop's Stortford 
to Hoddesden, which the King constantly used in going to 

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 358. ' Absalom and Achitophel.' Dairy mple, 
vol. i. Book i. p. 20. 
f Dalrymple. Sprat, 
% Sprat, pp. 31, 40. 



72 ii TLLIAM 0AB8TAREB [Ck 



and from Newmarket. The road was but a narrow lane, and 
could be stopped \>y overturning a cart in Lt, [t was over- 
Looked on one side \>y a thiols hedge, and ''ii the other l>y a 
long outhouse with several windows. The Byehouse itself 
stood bard by, surrounded with a moat and capable of effec- 
tive defence.* The offer of this advantageous spot was 
accepted by Fergu ion. The offer was made in ignorance of 
his design i" murder; and neither vValcot nor Elumbald 
i n aged to <l<> more than ii<-i|> in overpowering the escort of 
guards, t 

The Km;' was at Newmarket in March; and the attempt 
was to have been made on his journey back to London. A 
Are, which broke out in the house he occupied at Newmarket, 
cut sbori hirt Hiity there; and li<- drove past the Byehouse 
on his way to Whitehall, with a slender retinue, several <!;»yM 
earlier than was expected. The golden opportunity was 1<>h(, ; 
and great was the angry disappointment of the conspirators, 
win* immediately began to cast about for some other way of ful- 
filling their projects, and to furnish themselves with additional 
arms and ammunition. Thefy were busy with this when, 
on the L2th of June, Josiah Keeling, one of their own num- 
ber, ;< Salter in the ( lity, and an Anabaptist, resol red, as Sprat 
ha it, u after much conflict in his mind, to discharge his 
conscience of the hellish secret;" and laid an information 
before Sir Leoline Jenkins, the Secretary of State. A 
general discovery and dispersion <>r the Byehouse plot- 
ters followed. Ferguson of course disappeared ; but be left 
Bumsey, one of Cromwell's colonels, behind him, the only 
other conspirator who had, lil<<- himself, been admitted to the 
confidence of the chiefs of the great plot.:] Bussell indeed 
had always disliked Rumsey, and trusted him but Little; but 

j rat. 

* gee Burnel and I toll mple , and Rfacaulay, rol. Ii. p. I 15. Rumbald i<> 
ii, ( . vi -i y tail , when aboul to be executed after Ajgj ll'i rebellion, denied all 
knowledge of Fergu on'a Intention to atsasBinate, ll<; was oruelly treated 
,, hl , trial and e :eoution ; and big head wot pickled and senl up in a box 
to London, to be di iposed ol > i imet mighl h i ib, 

I iiiimr, vui. \ in. p, L78 ; Burnet, iq] ii p 351 



1Y.] LOBD RUSSELL. 



Eumsev knew enough of the designs of the Council of Six to 
make it worth his while to purchase his own safety by their 
betrayal. In his depositions he mentioned the meetings at 
Shephard the wine merchant's. Shephard was seized and 
examined on the 27th of June. He confirmed the state- 
ment of Eumsey, and named, as known partners in the 
plot, Monmouth, Essex, Eussell, Gray, Sir Thomas Arm- 
strong, Baillie, and others. "When the Privy Council heard 
the names of Monmouth and Eussell they became alarmed, 
and took measures for the arrest of the chief conspirators. 
Monmouth absconded. Gray, though arrested, contrived to 
escape. Eussell was found sitting in his study, and was car- 
ried to the Tower. Lord Howard was caught hidden up his 
chimney, and was drawn out blubbering and begrimed with 
soot. Profligate and cowardly, the only man of the higher 
order of plotters who knew the secrets of the lower, he turned 
traitor to his friends; and on his evidence Sidney, Essex, 
Hampden, Baillie, and many more were apprehended. Baillie 
was offered his life, if he too would turn king's evidence. He 
smiled and answered, " They, who can make such a proposal 
to me, know neither me nor my country." 

The first that was brought to trial was TValcot, on the 
12th of July. Lord Eussell followed on the loth. Few 
passages in British history are better known, or nobler and 
more touching, than those which tell how he underwent that 
trial, with " the daughter of the virtuous Southampton " by 
his side ; how he parted for ever with his children and his 
wife, his eves following hers as she left his cell, and then 
turned to Burnet and said, " The bitterness of death is past ;" 
how bravely and calmly he passe 1 through the crowded 
streets to the scaffold, and said his last prayer, and died.* 
It would be foreign to my purpose to trace the destiny of all 
the accomplices in this conspiracy, but a tribute, ever so 
brief, is due to one of the noblest of those martyrs of liberty 
who suffered under the Stuarts. 

* Dalryraple, vol. i. Book i. p. 28. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 364, et seq. 
Iluine, vol. viii. p. 179, a seq. 



74 WILLIAM CAR ST ARES. [Chap. 

Lord Eussell was beheaded on the 21st of July.* A few 
days later, on a Monday, Carstares was taken at Tenterden 
in Kent, where he was in hiding, under his mother's name of 
Mure. A short time before Keeling betrayed his confede- 
rates, a letter in cipher had come from Argyll to Monmouth, 
who had sent to Carstares for the key to the cipher. He 
returned it, when he had used it, to Major Holms, one of 
Argyll's chief confidants ; and on the Major's arrest, it was 
found in his possession. Lord Melfort no sooner saw the 
cipher, than he identified part of it as the handwriting of 
Carstares; and a warrant was issued for his apprehension. 

In the King's Declaration for Thanksgiving, dated 7th 
August, " Carstares, the nonconformist preacher," is named as 
one of those who have fled from justice ; yet at that time he 
must have been in custody in Kent, as he distinctly states, in 
a letter to Wodrow, that he was taken " the Monday imme- 
diately after the execution of that great and honourable 
patriot of his country, my Lord KusselU't 

The narrative which follows is Carstares's own. It is 

' embodied in a MS. corrected, though not written, by his 

hand, and which has evidently been intended as a reply to 

* In spite of this petition : " To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, the 
humble petition of William, Earl of Bedford, humbly sheweth, that could 
your petitioner have been admitted into your presence he would have laid 
himself at your royal feet, in behalf of his unfortunate son, himself and his 
distressed and disconsolate family, to implore your royal mercy, which he 
never had the presumption to think could be obtained by any indirect 
means." [A bribe of £100,000 for royal self or for the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
possibly ?] " But shall think himself, wife and children much happier to be 
left but with bread and water, than to lose his dear son for so foul a crime 
as treason against the best of princes, for whose life he ever did, and ever 
shall, pray more than for his own. May Grod incline your Majesty's heart 
to the prayers of an afflicted old father, and not bring gray hairs with 
sorrow to my grave. — Bedford." The King, urged by the Duke, refused 
the petition. Five years later, as the Dutch were approaching London, 
King James appealed to the Earl of Bedford. " My Lord, you are a good 
man. You have much interest with the peers. You can do me service 
with them to-day." " I once had a son," was Bedford's only answer, '^who 
could have served your Majesty upon this occasion." — Dalrymple. 

f Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 96. 



IV.] CARSTARES' ARREST. 75 

" Sprat's Account," which it pronounces to be a " rhapsody 
of false, inconsistent, and contradictory, narratives."* 

" The apprehending of several of my countrymen," he says, 
" and the strict search that was made after others gave me 
the alarm, having found by former sad experience that legal 
innocency did prove but a slender fence against the stream of 
violent opposition ; but it pleased the only wise and righte- 
ous God to order things so as that I was taken at Tenterden 
in Kent upon suspicion, and desired to take the oaths ; and 
upon my inquiring if upon taking the oaths of allegiance and 
supremacy I might expect liberty, being told that I must 
also take the corporation oath and abjure the Covenant, 
(though the Act of Parliament obliging to the last had been 
for some time expired) I was upon a very severe and false 
mittimus, upon refusing these oaths in their complex bulk, 
sent to a nasty gaol, full of dirt and stones, where thro' the 
windows neither having glass nor shutters, I was exposed to 
the view of every boy and girl in the street ; and though I 
offered to the keeper to maintain what guard he should think 
necessary for securing his prisoner, yet I was denied that 
favour, which hath been granted often to such as were pri- 
soners only for refusing the oaths. The great instrument of 
which severity was one Lieut.-Col. Ausden (as I take his 
name to be), who by an inhuman carriage to a poor stranger 
did think to reconcile himself to his Majesty, to whose re- 
sentments his carriage in parliament did expose him. After 
a fortnight's imprisonment there, I was sent for to London, 
and carried before a Committee of the Council consisting of 
four members of the honourable board — the Duke of Ormond, 
the then Lord Keeper, Marquis of Halifax and Sir Lionel 
Jenkins — who were the only persons by whom I was exa- 
mined, — his Majesty (as I was informed) being out of town. 
I was twice before these Lords, and asked whether I was con- 
cerned in any plot against King and government ; to which, 
according to truth, I answered negatively. Several other 

* This MS. is in part much the same as the letter given by Wodrow, 
vol. iv. p. 96. 



76 WILLIAM CARSTARJES. [Chap. 

questions being put, I gave one and the same answer to the 
most important of them, viz. — that they relating to criminal 
matters, I could answer them no other way but by disowning 
all concern in such affairs, — which carriage moved Sir Lionel 
Jenkins to draw a mittimus for my commitment to the Gate- 
house, where I was ordered to be kept close prisoner as a 
person guilty of high treason, in conspiring the death of the 
King and levying war ;* the strain of which mittimus was the 
more surprising to me in that Sir Andrew Forrester (who had 
been sent to me twice while I was in the hands of a mes- 
senger, to offer me from the Lords of Council then in town, 
by His Majesty's order and in his name, life and favour if I 
would confess what I knew of the Cessnocks and others, 
showing me that this was a kindness beyond what I could 
have expected, considering that I came not in voluntarily but 
was apprehended. But after all the arguments made use of 
by him, with the greatest civility, had been ineffectual, I 
still answering that I had nothing to accuse any man of, he 
left me regretting much my condition, and showing me that 
my Lord Argyll's letter and Mr. Holms — with other witnesses 
whom I did not suspect — would make my concern in the plot 
evident,) did declare that the King did not suspect I was 
guilty of any design against his life, but did believe I would 
abhor any such thing, tho' he did seem to insinuate that I 
might have heard of some such base attempt. But I am apt 
to think that one great reason why I was so severely dealt 
with was because, not only offers of favour made by Sir 

* " Sir Leolin Jenkins, Knight, of his Majesty most honourable Privy 
Council, and Principal Secretary of State : These are in his Majesty's name 
to will and require you to receive into your custody the person of William 
Carstayres herewith sent you, being committed for high treason in com- 
passing the death and destruction of our sovereign lord the King (whom 
God preserve) and conspiring to levy war against his Majesty, and him 
the said William Carstayres to keep in safe custody, until he shall be dis- 
charged by due course of law, — for which this shall be your warrant. Given 
under my hand and seal at Whitehall the 17th day of August 1683, in 
the 35th year of His Majesty's reign. — L. Jenkins. To Anthony Church, 
Gent., Keeper of His Majesty's prison, the Gatehouse, Westminster."' — 
Graham Dunlop MSS. 



IV.] /AT THE GATEHOUSE. 77 

Andrew Forrester, under secretary for Scotland, were rejected 
by me, but that the insinuation of having his Majesty's 
pardon made to me by my Lord Keeper, who desired me to 
give the noble persons, before whom I then was, some ground 
to go upon in pleading with his Majesty for favour to me, was 
not regarded. While I was in the Gatehouse, his Majesty's 
advocate for the kingdom of Scotland came to examine me, 
who, not meeting with that satisfactory answer to his inter- 
rogators which he desired, told me that the Boot in Scotland 
should drive out of me what he alleged I refused to confess. 
Having for some weeks continued close prisoner, my wife 
having a copy of my mittimus did first petition his Majesty 
in Council, and having had no answer, did conclude that she 
might take the ordinary course in law allowed in such cases, 
which she did by addressing the Court of King's Bench, and 
petitioning that either I might be brought to a trial, or have 
the benefit of law, in being admitted to bail, — which petition 
was recorded by that Court. But when I expected the pri- 
vilege of a subject of England, I was, in the most open contra- 
riety to plain law, as well as my own expectation, ordered by 
a warrant under my Lord Sunderland's hand, and super- 
scribed by his Majesty,* to be sent to Scotland, where I had 
committed no crime ; — nor was it to be rationally supposed I 
could be guilty of any, having been a prisoner at the time of 
Bothwell Bridge, and for near five years before ; and leaving 
my country a few months after I had obtained my liberty, as 
I had been a stranger to it a long time before my imprison- 

* "Charles E. Whereas Eobert Bayly of Jervaswood in our King- 
dom of Scotland, John Hepburne, and William Carstares stand accused of, 
or are upon very good grounds suspected to be, guilty of high treason in 
our said Kingdom, and are now in your custody ; our will and pleasure is 
that you forthwith deliver the said Robert Bayly, John Hepburne, and 
William Carstares into the hands of Anthony Binns, one of our messengers 
in ordinary, to be by him carried on board our yacht, the Kitchin, in order 
to their transportation into Scotland, to be proceeded against there accord- 
ing to law ; for which this shall be your warrant. Given at our Court at 
Whitehall, the 30th day of October 1683, in the five and thirtieth year of 
our reign. By his Majesty's command — Sunderland. To the keeper of 
the Gatehouse." — Graham Dunlop MSS. 



78 WILLIAM CAPiSTAEES. [Chap. 

ment : yet upon this warrant I was, upon a few hours' warn- 
ing, conveyed aboard his Majesty's Kitchin yacht, in which, 
with several gentlemen of my own country, I was transported 
to Scotland. It may indeed seem 'strange that this second 
time I should have been so illegally dealt with, after an ex- 
press Act of Parliament forbidding, under very severe penal- 
ties, that any residing in England should, for any crime 
committed in it, be carried out of the kingdom in order 
to trial and continuance of restraint; but this is such a 
breach of law as cannot be palliated, and for which my Lord 
Sunderland and others concerned owe that satisfaction to the 
justice of the nation, and to me, which the statute requires ; 
seeing in all my examinations in Scotland, I was not so much 
as accused of a crime committed in that kingdom. There 
needs no great inquiry into the reason of my being so used, 
seeing it is plain that I and others were sent home, because it 
was judged that violent tortures which the laws of England — 
at least the custom — does not admit of — would force to 
anything." 

The yacht sailed from London on the 1st of November, but 
had a tedious and very stormy passage, and did not reach 
Leith till the 14th. On board, besides Carstares, Baillie, and 
Hepburn (a suspected clergyman), were the two Cessnocks ; 
Muir of Eowallan, with his eldest son, and Fairlie of Brunts- 
field, his son-in-law ; Craufurd of Crawfurdland ; Commissary 
Monro ; Murray, of Tippermuir, and Spence, one of Argyll's 
servants. 

Late at night on the 14th, the prisoners were carried up 
to Edinburgh, under a strong guard, and lodged in the 
Tolbooth.* 

* Fountainhall, vol. ii. p. 458 ; McCormick, p. 17. 



V.] 79 



CHAPTEK V. 

Second Imprisonment — Examination and Torture — The Thumbkins — 
Sir George Mackenzie — The Deposition. 

When Front-de-Boeuf was about to wring his' thousand pounds 
of silver from Isaac of York, by the simple process of roasting 
him over a fire of charcoal until he should agree to pay the 
money, he had the Israelite carried to the lowest dungeon of 
Torquilstone, whence no remonstrant outcries could reach 
the upper air. On the same plan, King Charles had his 
Scottish prisoners transported to their native country, in 
order that there, remote from the freer air of England, they 
might, if necessary, be tortured into making the revelations 
which he hoped to extort from them. 

He dared not have applied the boot or the thumbkins, 
even in the darkest cell of the Tower of London ; but these 
instruments might be freely used in Edinburgh, under the 
eyes of Scottish peers, prelates, and privy councillors. The 
King, his brother, and his Council, had been thoroughly 
alarmed by the discovery of the two plots ; and he was deter- 
mined to force from the victims in his power full disclosures 
of the names and designs of all, who had been privy to their 
schemes. The prisoners had not been in the Tolbooth a 
week, when a letter came from his Majesty to the Privy 
Council, ordering Gordon of Earlston and Spence " to be 
tortured in the boots, to extort a discovery of the late de- 
signs."* Gordon had been taken at Newcastle in June, 
and had been condemned to death, but once or twice re- 
prieved ; and this was the second time the King,t against the 
remonstrance even of his Scotch advisers, had ordered him 
to be tortured, while under sentence of death. 

* Fountainhall, p. 463. f Fountainhall, p. 452. 



80 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

The Privy Council began with Gordon, and he was 
brought up for torture on the 23rd of November. The 
boot, however, was not applied. Gordon either went mad, 
or pretended to do so. He "roared out like a bull, and 
cried and struck about him so that the hangman and his 
man durst scarce lay hands on him ;" he said General 
Dalzell was to head the plot ; and, in short, so comported 
himself that the Privy Council was glad to send him up to 
the Castle and finally to despatch him to the Bass.* Processes 
against the Campbells of Cessnock, Craufurd, the Cochrans, 
and others, seem to have occupied the government during 
the winter, for Spence is not mentioned until the 22nd of 
April, on which day the Council allow him to be " taken out 
of the irons," in which, presumably, he had lain since 
November ; but order him to be kept close prisoner. t 

It was on the 26th of July that he began to undergo the 
torture. He was, first of all, required to swear that he should 
answer whatever questions might be put to him, although 
the law expressly forbade the exaction of such an oath 4 
He refused, and his leg was placed in the boot. This instru- 
ment was an iron cylinder, into which the leg was inserted 
up to the knee ; and wedges were then driven in between the 
case and the limb. 

" On the ankle the sharp wedge descends, 
The bone reluctant with the iron bends, 
Crushed is its frame — blood spurts from every pore, 
And the white marrow swims in purple gore.'"§ 

Spence stood firm, and would not reply to the interroga- 
tories. He was thereupon sent back to prison, and entrusted 
to General Dalzell, who directed him to be clothed in a hair 
shirt, and to be watched, night and day, by soldiers who, by 
pricking him, kept him for seven or eight days and nights 
from a moment's sleep. || 

* Fountainhall, p. 465. 

f Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 95. 

J Burnet, vol. ii. p. 429 ; Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 95. 

§ Lines by Thomas Gibbons, prefixed to Crookshank's ' History.' 

|| Graham Dunlop MSS. 



V.] TEE THUMBKINS. 81 

Although worn out with this treatment, he revealed nothing; 
and on the 7th of August he was carried to the Council 
Chamber again, to be tortured with the thumbkins.* 

This little engine had been known in Muscovy, and brought 
home, as a useful contribution to the resources of the execu- 
tive, by General Dalzellt It is not unlike a miniature pair 
of stocks, in steel, with a strong central screw. The thumbs 
are inserted in two apertures, and the upper bar is screwed 
down until the bones are crushed.^ The thumbkins were 
applied, but still Spence kept silence. The boot was then 
brought out again, and his leg was about to be encased, when 
he asked for time to consider what he should do, which was 
granted. Believing that nothing he could tell would reveal 
more than the government already had found out, he, on 
the 19th of August, made a declaration to the effect that he 
knew a plot for the defence of the Protestant religion, and 
the liberties of the kingdom, had been going on for two years. 
He also agreed to decipher certain letters of Argyll's which 
had been found in Holmes's keeping, and the key to which 
the Countess, on being cited by the Council, alleged she had 
burned. The cipher, which was that devised by James 
Steuart, is given by McCormick and Sprat, and is embodied 
in the 'True and Plain Account.' It is extraordinarily 
intricate, and, even when deciphered, is found to be full of 
private marks and names, and to require to be read in a 

* Fountainhall, pp. 454, 548. 

t Ibid. p. 548. 

% Dr. Hill Burton (' History,' vol. vii. p. 454) describes the thumb- 
screws differently. I speak on the authority of the pair with which 
Carstares was tortured, and which are now in Mr. Graham Dunlop's pos- 
session, along with the ring given by the Marquis of Argyll to John Car- 
stares, a ring inclosing King William's hair given to William Carstares 
by the King, and other Carstares relics. 

On the 23rd of July, 1684, the Privy Council resolve that " whereas 
the boots were the ordinary way to explicate matters relating to the 
government, and there is now a new invention and engine called the 
' Thumbkins,' which will be very effectual to the purpose aforesaid, the 
Lords ordain that when any person shall by their order be put to the 
torture, the said boots and thumbkins both be applied to them, as it shall 
be found fit and convenient. 1 ' 

G 



82 WILLIAM CAR8TARES. [Chap. 

certain order, the key to which is given, in cipher also, at the 
beginning or end of each communication in which the cipher 
is used. The letter whose contents proved to be of most 
importance was dated the 21st of June, and addressed to 
Major Holmes. It was written in Argyll's own hand, and 
when unravelled by Spence ran as follows : — " I know not 
the grounds our friends have gone upon, which hath occa- 
sioned them to offer so little money as I hear ; neither know 
I what assistance they intend to give. And, till I know both, 
I will neither refuse my service, nor do so much as object 
against anything is resolved, till I first hear what Mr. Ked,* 
or any other you send shall say. Only, in the mean time, I 
resolve to let you know as much of the grounds I go on, as is 
possible at this distance, and in this way. I did truly, in my 
proposition, mention the very least sum I thought could do 
our business effectually, not half of what I would have 
thought requisite in another juncture of affairs ; and what I 
proposed I thought altogether so far within the power of those 
concerned, that, if a little less could possibly do the business, 
it would not be stood upon. I reckoned the assistance of the 
horse absolutely necessary for the first brush ; and I do so 
still : I shall not be peremptor to urge the precise number 
named ; but I do think there needs very near that number 
effectually ; and I think 1000 as easy had as 8 or 600. 
And, it were hard that it stuck at the odds. I leave it to 
you to consider, if all should be hazarded upon so small a 
differ. As to the money, I confess, what was proposed is 
more by half than is absolutely necessary at the first week's 
work ; but, soon after, all the sum was proposed, and more, 
will be necessar, if it please God to give success ; and then 
arms cannot be sent like money by bills. There are now 
above 1200 horse and dragoons, and 2000 foot at least, of 
standing forces in Brand,! very well appointed, and tolerably 
well commanded. It is right hard to expect that country- 
people on foot, without horse, should beat them, the triple 
their number ; and if multitudes can be got together, yet 
* Carstares. f Scotland. 



V.] ARGYLL'S LETTEB. 83 

they will need more arms, more provision, and have more 
trouble with them. But the case is, if something consider- 
able be not suddenly done at the very first appearing, and 
that there be only a multitude gathered without action, 
though that may frighten a little, it will do no good. The 
standing forces will take up some station, probably at Stir- 
Ling, and will, to their aid, not only have the militia of 
20,000 foot and 2000 horse, but all the heritors, &c, to the 
number, it may be, of 50,000. And, though many will be 
unwilling to light for the standing forces, yet the most part 
will once join, and many will be as concerned for them as any 
can be against them. And, though we had at first the greatest 
success imaginable ; yet it is impossible but some will keep 
together, and get some concurrence and assistance, not only in 
Brand,* but from Birch f and Ireland. It will not then be time 
to call for more arms, far less for money to buy them. No money 
nor credit could supply it. We should prove like the foolish 
virgins. Consider, in the next place, how Browne \ can employ 
so much money, and so many horse, better for their own inte- 
rest, though the Protestant interest were not concerned. Is it 
not a small sum, and a small force, to raise so many men with, 
and, by God's blessing, to repress the whole power of Brand, 
that some hope are engaged against us ; besides, the horse to 
be sent need possibly stay but a little time to do a job, if 
future events do not bring the seat of the war to Brand, 
which is yet more to the advantage of Birch. As to the total 
of the money that was proposed, by the best husbanding, it 
cannot purchase arms, and absolute necessaries for one time, 
for a militia of the number they are to deal with ; and there 
is nothing out of the whole designed to be bestowed upon 
many things usual and necessary for such an undertaking, as 
tents, waggons, cloaths, shoes, horse, horse-shoes ; all which 
are not only necessary to be once had, but daily to be re- 
cruited. Far less, out of the whole sum projected, was any 
thing proposed for provisions of meat or drink, intelligence, 
or incident charges. Some very honest, well-meaning, and 
* Scotland, + England % Dissenting Lords. 

G 2 



84 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

very good men, may undertake on little, because they can do 
little, and know little what -is to be done. All I shall add is, 
I made the reckoning as low as if I had been to pay it out of 
my own purse ; and, whether I meddle or meddle not, I 
resolve never to touch the money, but to order the payment 
of necessaries as they shall be received ; and I shall freely 
submit myself to any knowing soldier for the lists, and any 
knowing merchant for the prices I have calculated. When 
there is an occasion to confer about it, it will be a great en- 
couragement to persons that have estates to venture, and that 
consider what they do, that they know that there is a project, 
and prospect of the whole affair, and all necessaries provided 
for such an attempt. If, after I have spoke with Mr. Bed,* 
I see I can do you service, I will be very willing ; if I be not 
able, I pray God some other may. But, before it be given 
over, I wish I had such a conference as I writ of to you a 
week ago ; for I expect not all . from Browne.f Some con- 
siderable part of the horse may, I hope, be made up by the 
help of your particular friends. I have yet something to 
add, to enforce all I have said, which I cannot at this dis- 
tance ; and some things are to be done to prevent the designs 
of enemies, that I dare not now mention, lest it should put 
them on their guard. I have a considerable direction in my 
head ; but all is in God's hands." 

The references to Carstares here were not to be overlooked, 
and afforded the Privy Council sufficient pretext to proceed 
actively against him. The suspicions of which he was the ob- 
ject, and the strong desire to hold him implicated in the worst 
portions of the Eyehouse conspiracy, may easily be understood 
from the tone in which Sprat mentions him in his ' Account.' He 
speaks of him as " a Scotch conventicle preacher to a nume- 
rous meeting at Theobalds, where Bumbald was his frequent 
hearer ;" and again, as " a zealous and fierce preacher to the 
sectaries of both kingdoms," formerly prisoner in Edinburgh 
Castle, " being accused for publishing a treasonable pamphlet 
called the ' Grievances of Scotland/ " and now " much em- 
* Carstares. f Dissenting Lords. 



V.] JOHN CARSTARES. 85 

ployed in many messages relating to this conspiracy," " dis- 
persing Argyll's libellous books, and carrying to and fro his 
letters." * 

A Scot, against whom the English could lay such charges, 
and whom they evidently regarded as one of the chief agents 
of the plot, could not be let easily off. There would appear, 
however, to have been a kindly feeling towards him, from 
whatever cause, in the mind of the Lord Advocate ; and had 
he but agreed to betray his friends, his own share in the con- 
spiracy would have been condoned ; but this, of course, he 
would not do. He was not brought before the Council till 
September. The long confinement in the Tolbooth was some- 
times very strict, sometimes relaxed, so as to admit of his 
seeing his wife, who had followed him from London, and was 
with his father and mother in or near Edinburgh. 

His father, though not more than sixty years of age, was 
now very feeble, not able for many months past " to walk alone 
without much trouble, if at all, betwixt the Cross and the 
Tron." His last public appearance had been in November 
1680, when he was summoned before the Council, on suspi- 
cion of being concerned in some of the extravagances of 
Cargill's followers, and when he " came off with a great deal 
of respect and applause," although he had taken the oppor- 
tunity of protesting against Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh, 
sitting in a civil court, and of refusing him his title of bishop.t 

Few, if any, of the uncompromising national clergy, were 
held in such esteem as John Carstares. When Eothes, the 
Chancellor, lay dying, he sent for him that he might hear 
him pray. The prayers were so beautiful and touching, that 
almost all who were present were moved to tears. A lady — 
so violently Episcopal that she would not stay in the room 
with the Presbyterian minister — overhearing him, was forced 
to own she never knew the difference between a Prelatic and 
a Presbyterian minister till then. " This is a strange thing," 
said the Duke of Hamilton, who was with the Chancellor, 
" we are aye hunting and pursuing these men in our time of 
* Sprat, pp. 27, 77. f Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 241. 



86 WILLIAM CARSTARE8. [Chap. 

life and health, but we are, many of us, made to call for 
them at our death." * 

The good man was sorely displeased at his son's fresh 
political embarrassments. He and his kindred had already, 
and even recently, suffered so much, that he seems to have 
Tesented, with a sense of personal injury, William's bringing 
new troubles on the family. Since his own wife's experience 
of prison, Caldwell's widow, with one of her daughters, had 
been seized on the false evidence of a single witness, and, 
without a trial, incarcerated, first in Glasgow jail, and then 
in Blackness Castle, whence she was not allowed to go out, 
even with a guard, to visit another daughter who was sick, 
and who died without her mother's farewell. Young Glan- 
derston had been thrown into jail because, when in the ex- 
tremity of a fever, he had been bled by a nonconformist 
apothecary. Porter field of Duchal, Maxwell of Pollock, 
Hamilton of Hallcraig, all kinsmen or dear friends, had 
each been in prison ; | and now William must arrive to vex 
his father's soul as a suspected plotter of seditious plots, 
instead of comforting him amidst all these distresses. If 
the solemn advice he had given his son when he was re- 
leased in 1679 had been laid to heart, this would not have 
happened. He was sore displeased. "I have a son called 
Mr. William," he said to one of his visitors, " and a good-son 
[i.e. son-in-law], Mr. William Dunlop ; they will be aye plot- 
ting and plodding till they plod the heads off themselves. 
And this is very grievous to me, for as they are ministers of 
the gospel, they are not called to meddle with that work which 
noblemen and gentlemen may very lawfully be called to." f 

William's wife, let us hope, was dutiful to the worn and 
saddened old man, and helped to soothe his troubled spirit. 
There are several letters of her husband's, which appear to 
have been written during this imprisonment, and which are 
mostly addressed to her. Nine of them — eight to her and 

* ' Analecta,' vol. iii. p. 48. 

t Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. 439, 466, 474. 

J ' Analecta,' vol. iii. p. 51. 



V.] LETTERS FROM PBISON. 87 

one to a sister — are published from the Graham Dunlop MSS., 
to which Dr. Burns had access, in the appendix to his edition 
of Wodrow. From these and from the rest of the collec- 
tion I make a few extracts, to illustrate the character of the 
letters, which are in general short, and written, without date 
or signature, on small bits of paper : — 

" Your news of an indictment were surprising to us, because 
none of us can see upon what ground they can found one, while we 
have been such strangers to Scotland, and have been guilty of no 
crime in it ; but we doubt not but our innocency shall appear, and 
that we shall have no reason to complain of our native country. 
My dearest, my greatest outward concern is for thee. Thou liest 
near to me, and deservedly, for thou hast been a most kind and 
conscientious wife to me, — the Lord bless thee, and be thy com- 
forter and portion, and, if it be His will, restore us to one another 
again." 

He adds, on the same sheet, to his sister, Mrs. Dunlop : — 

" Dear Sister, — It was not a little refreshing to me to hear of 
your being in town. I much longed for you, and am sorry I cannot 
see you, for there are so many eyes upon us that Mr. Benham can- 
not do us the kindness he would ; but you may see his wife and try 
if you can be in Mr. Hogg's room to-morrow night, when the maid 
comes for her things, and it may be Mr. Benham may admit you. * 
Leave some money at the checque-lock if you come, and give Mr. 
Benham some if he admit you. I am sorry you brought not your 
son with you. If he could be brought without hurt I should be 
glad to see him." 

"My Dearest. — (Monday night.) — I had my dear father's letter. 
It seems things run high. A number of groundless reports are 
spread of me as to crimes for which there is no ground ; but hard 
things seem to be abiding me, if God do not interpose. He can 
disappoint fears, and support under any troubles that come ; he is 
my hope and strength, and in His infinite love and mercy in Christ 
I trust. It may be He will make light to arise upon me as to my 

* Thomas Hogg, of Kiltearn, bad been often in and out of prison. He 
was finally banished, early in 1684. " A coacli came for him to the door of 
the Tolbooth " (another proof that Garstares' place of confinement was the 
Tolbooth, and not, as McCormlck would have it, the Castle), and he drove 
off and reached Berwick on the 3rd of April. Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 512. 



88 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

spiritual and outward condition, but if I have his favour I cannot 
be miserable .... I shall be glad to see thee once a day, either 
about eleven in the forenoon or four in the afternoon; and if 
reports be refreshing then hold up both hands ; if otherwise hold 
up but one." 

"My dearest Sister Consider your husband's true 

affection, which I do not doubt but he hath for you, and how much 
it must afflict him, in his voyage, to leave you as sorrowful as I 
perceive he is like to do ; and besides, I think you ought to con- 
sider the poor child you have already, and your present condition, so 
as to guard against excessive sorrow upon the account of what Provi- 
dence thinks fit to put into your lot ... . Pray weigh with your- 
self how you would carry if your husband were in my place and 
circumstances. I am apt to think you would reckon it a mercy to 
have him a free man, though upon the condition of going the 
voyage,* the thoughts whereof do now so much perplex you. The 
serious consideration of what we deserve from God, — of what we might 
have met with that He hath not measured out unto us, — of what we 
have been sometimes, it may be, afraid of, that yet we have been 
disappointed in, — and of what we see others meet with that is not 
in our lot — would, thro' God's blessing, contribute much to a 
cheerful acquiescing in the will of God as to lesser afflictions." 

" My Dearest, — My Lord Advocate was with me this day, show- 
ing me that Mr. Sp — , after long enduring of torture, did at last 
decipher some letters of Arg — , by which it did appear that I was 
deeply concerned in this affair, so long talked of, as to raising 
of money for a rebellion, and therefore had begged leave of the 
Council that he might first speak to me, having a kindness for me, 
and therefore obtested me to be ingenuous, as I loved myself, for 
that torture had made Mr. Sp — do, at last, what he had so long 
refused to do, and would make me do it too. He expressed a great 
kindness for my father and you. I told I knew nothing, and I did 
not know what I might say in torture. He desired me to swear. 
I told him I could not swear in anything criminal in itself, what- 
ever it might be made to me ; and did, as I had reason, and as it 
became an honest man, clear myself of all plots whatsoever. My 
dearest, thou liest near my heart. God bless thee. Be encouraged. 
He will be thy God and portion whatever He do with me. He is 
just and righteous, and I desire to love Him. ! for such a fear 

* To Carolina. 



V.] THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 89 

of Him as might fortify me against all unsuitable fear of any else. 
Himself be my strength, for I have none of my own. My duty to 
my clearest parents, and love to sisters. Farewell, my poor afflicted 
wife. Thine in true affection. " 

This last letter brings us to the eve of his appearance 
before the Privy Council. 

Some of the Lords of the Council had held an interview 
with him as early as January, with the object, apparently, of 
entrapping him into admissions which might be useful to the 
government ; but had failed in their attempt. After Spence's 
torture, other members of the Council besides the Lord 
Advocate, and specially the Earl of Melfort, " several times 
very earnestly " urged him to confess what he knew of any 
designs against the King and the government, but in vain. 

" I giving no satisfaction," he proceeds in the MS. I have already 
quoted, {: though I had favourable conditions offered me, one of 
which was that I should not be brought as a witness against any, 
my Lord Chancellor was so enraged that he had these expressions 
to me, which, in so far as I remember, were that the kindness I had 
met with from his brother * in the pains he had been at with me, 
should be laid to my charge ; and ' before God,' said he, ' there 
shall not be a Joint of you left whole.' — I did resolve, through 
divine assistance, to adventure upon the torture, rejecting at that 
time the conditions which Melfort had difficultly obtained for me 
from the Privy Council. My reasons were because I imagined, if 
I could once endure so severe torture, either the Lords of the 
Council would have some regard to my character, and not put me 
further to torture, or what I suffered might throw me into a fever, 
aud so I might be carried off the world ; for I can declare that 
death, either by a sentence or any other violence, wherein my own 
hand was not concerned, would have been welcome to me." 

On the 5th of September, a little before noon, he was 
taken out of the irons, in which he had lain since the 

* The Earl of Perth was now Lord Chancellor. In his youth a zealous 
Presbyterian, he had become an Episcopalian. On James's accession he 
declared himself a Pioman Catholic. His brother was the Earl of Melfort, 
Lord Treasurer Depute, and one of the chief favourites of the Court. Both 
the brothers, after the Revolution, followed James to France. 



90 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

19th of August, and brought down to that long, low-browed 
chamber in the Parliament House, where the Privy Council 
held its sittings and tortured its victims. The great, brutal, 
domineering Lauderdale was no longer there ; he and the 
rough Rothes had gone to render their bloodstained account. 
Perth filled the Chancellor's seat, and his brother Melfort, 
who had been Lieutenant-Governor of Edinburgh Castle 
during Carstares' first imprisonment, sat beside him as Lord 
Treasurer Depute. Two other brothers were members — 
John Paterson, Bishop of Edinburgh, and Sir William, Clerk 
of the Council, who had been Carstares' "regent" when 
he studied as a lad at Edinburgh College. Claverhouse 
had been sworn in as a Privy Councillor in May 1683 ; 
and when he could spare time from hunting and shoot- 
ing the Presbyterian peasantry of Galloway and Ayrshire, 
came to join his counsels to those of his commander-in-chief, 
Dalzell, whose place at the board was marked by the savage 
manner which he had learned in Eussian camps, and by the 
long white beard which he had never cut since the 30th of 
January, 1649. The most remarkable man among them all 
was the Lord Advocate, Sir George Mackenzie. A man of 
wide culture and great learning — " that noble wit of Scot- 
land," as Dryden calls him * — an author who clothed his 
subtle thought in an admirable style, as clear as Swift's, as 
piquant as Montaigne's ; an accomplished jurist and an en- 
lightened politician, he yet lent all the weight of his cha- 
racter and his abilities to the cause of misgovernment and 
oppression. In early life the defender of the Marquis of 
Argyll, he was now the relentless persecutor of the Cove- 
nanters, who knew and hated him as the " bloody Mackenzie." 
The philosopher who could write, " It fares with heretics as 
with tops, which, how long they are scourged, keep foot and 
run pleasantly, but fall how soon they are neglected and left 
to themselves,"! was the willing instrument of the most 
prying and painstaking persecution of insignificant and 

* ' Discourse on the Origin and Progress of Satire.' 
f ' The Stoic's Address to the Fanatics/ 



V.] CAR STARES BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 91 

fanatical offenders that Christendom has ever seen. In his 
study he could pen the sentence, " Opinion kept within its 
proper bounds is a pure act of the mind, and so it would 
appear that to punish the body for that which is the guilt of 
the soul is as unjust as to punish one relation for another/'* 
and could step out thence to apply the boot and the thumbkins 
to sufferers for conscience' sake. It was this high official who 
was now to direct the measures to be taken against Carstares. 

The design of the Council was, partly, to satisfy the English 
government by proceeding against one of the most suspected 
of the Scotch accomplices in the recent conspiracy, but 
chiefly to extort from Carstares the secrets, which it was 
believed he possessed, relative to the plans of Argyll and 
the other malcontents abroad ; for though all the Whig 
plotters who had not escaped from England had borne their 
penalties — though Sidney's noble head had fallen on the 
scaffold, and though Monmouth was powerless and in disgrace 
and exile — the dread of Argyll and his associates in Holland 
remained to trouble the government with a vague surmise of 
evil to come. 

It must have been with no ordinary anxiety that he took 
his place at the bar, for though prepared to disclaim all share 
in any plot against the King's life or the established mon- 
archy, and to palliate his concurrence in the designs of 
Kussell and Argyll, on the plea that they only aimed at the 
redress of existing grievances, he did not know whether or 
not any discovery had been made of his own private corre- 
spondence with the most trusted agents of the Prince of 
Orange. He had kept up this correspondence with Fagel and 
with Bentinck until the very time of his arrest in England.t 
What the secrets of it were he would never, even after the 
Revolution, reveal ; but Fagel spoke of them to Burnet as 
affairs of the greatest importance, the betrayal of which 
would have secured his free pardon, and laid the King 
and government under lasting obligation to Carstares-t Of 

* ' The Stoic's Address to the Fanatics.' f McCormick, p. 24. 

% Burnet, vol. ii. p. 431. 



92 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

these secrets, however, the Scotch inquisitors were ignorant ; 
and the question to which they addressed themselves was 
Carstares' engagement in, and knowledge of, the recent 
plot. 

When brought before the Privy Council in London the 
declarations of Shephard and Holmes had been read to him ; 
but neither Shephard nor Holmes was confronted with him, 
to be cross-examined on what they had deposed. Their 
declarations both specified Carstares as engaged in the plot.* 
These were now again read over to him ; and, upon his 
declining to own their truth, and objecting to depositions 
made in his absence, by deponents whom he had had no 
opportunity of cross-examining, being taken as evidence 
against him, he was asked, would he then answer, on oath, 
whatever questions should be put to him. He positively 
refused, although assured that the questions should be few, 
that they should concern others only, and not be allowed 
to tell against himself, and that if he did not reply to 
them he should be treated as Spence had been treated. 
The practice of requiring such answers, Carstares firmly 
said, was so bad a precedent in criminal cases, that he was 
determined they should not begin it with him.f Upon 
this the Council paused, and the prisoner was removed and 
carried back to prison. On his leaving the Council several 
questions were written out and sent after him, with a mes- 
sage that he must answer these on oath that evening, or be 
tortured. 

In the evening accordingly he was brought down again ; 
and still declining to answer the queries, he was asked if he 
had any reason to urge against his being put to the torture. 
t( I answered," he says, " I did humbly judge that I could not 
be any ways tried there ; for the order by which I was sent 
down to Scotland was express, that I should be tried for 
crimes committed against the government in that kingdom ; 
and I desired to know if my Lord Advocate had anything 

* Sprat. Copies of Deposition. ' True and Plain Account.' 
t McCormick. Graham Dunlop MSS. 



V.] THE TORTURE. 93 

to charge me with of that nature. He declared he had not, 
but that I was now in Scotland, and if I had been guilty of 
contriving against his Majesty's government at Constanti- 
nople, I might be tried for it. I told him I thought it was 
true, but that the crimes I was accused of were said to be 
committed in England, where his Majesty's laws were equally 
in force for the security of his government as they were in 
Scotland, which at Constantinople they were not. But this 
was overruled, and yet this was a notorious and unjust breach 
of the law of the Habeas Corpus Act, which was made ex- 
pressly for the security of the liberty of Scots and Irish 
men. They then asked me if I had anything further to offer 
against being tortured. I told them that I did not pretend 
to any skill in law, but that I was informed that semiplena 
prdbatio was necessary in order to torture, which was not in 
my case ; for neither the depositions of those at London, nor 
what was said in my Lord Argyle's letters, did amount to 
any such thing. They told me presumptions were enough to 
warrant torture. Then they asked me again if I had any- 
thing further to say why I should not be brought to torture. 
I told them I had only an humble petition to them that I 
might meet with no greater severity in my own country, than 
the laws of that in which the crimes I am accused of are said 
to be committed do allow of." 

Without further parley the torture began. One of the 
bailies of Edinburgh and the executioner had been ordered 
to be present to conduct the operation ; and the King's smith 
was also in attendance with a new pair of thumbkins, of an 
improved construction, by which much greater force could 
be applied to the screw. Carstares' thumbs were put in, and 
screwed down till the sweat of his agony poured over his 
brow and down his cheeks. The Duke of Hamilton, who 
was entirely opposed to the torturing system, rose and left 
the Council room, followed by the Duke of Queensberry, who 
exclaimed to the Chancellor, " I see he will rather die than 
confess." All the reply Perth made was to order the execu- 
tioner to give another turn, which was given with such 



94 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

violence that Carstares broke silence and cried out, " The 
bones are squeezed to pieces ! " " If you continue obstinate," 
roared the Chancellor, k ' : I hope to see every bone of your 
body squeezed to pieces !" Again and again he was asked, 
would he answer the queries of the Council ; and assured 
that if he did not, he should be tortured day by day while 
he had life. General Dalzell at last in a rage left his seat 
at the table, and coming close to the prisoner, vowed that he 
would take him and roast him alive the next day, if he would 
not comply. Carstares did not waver for a moment from 
his resolute refusal. A sterner test must be applied, and 
the order was given for the boot. While his thumbs were 
still held fast in the thumbkins the boot was brought for- 
ward, and an attempt made to fit it on. The hangman, how- 
ever, had only been in office since the 15th of August, (when 
his predecessor had been consigned to the "Thieves' Hole" 
for nearly beating a beggar to death), and was so inexpert 
that he could not adjust the boot and the wedge. He had 
to take it off after a good deal of bungling, and applying 
himself anew to the thumbkins, the screw was turned again 
and again, until Carstares appeared to be on the verge of a 
swoon. The torture had lasted " an hour," according to the 
Minute of Council, " near an hour and a half," according to 
the victim's own report, when " the Lords thought fit to ease 
him of the torture for that time." The executioner was or- 
dered to remove the thumbkins ; but when he attempted to 
loosen them he found it beyond his strength to undo what 
he had done ; and the King's smith had to be called to fetch 
his tools to revert the screw, before the broken and mangled 
thumbs could be released.* Carstares was then sent back 
to the Tolbooth, with due notice that if he remained " obsti- 

* After the Kevolution the thumbkins were presented by the Privy 
Council to Carstares. King William expressed a wish to see them and to 
try them on. They were accordingly fastened on the royal thumbs, and 
Carstares gave the screw a courtier like turn. " Harder," said the King, 
and another was given. " Again," and Carstares turned the screw pretty 
sharply. "Stop, Doctor, stop," cried William. "Another turn would 
make me confess anything." 



V.] HE CAPITULATES. 95 

nate," he would be tortured with the boot by a skilled ope- 
rator next morning at nine o'clock.* 

All night he lay in a fever, through the greatness of his 
pain ; and in the morning the surgeon who attended him 
went to the Chancellor, to beg that the further torture 
might be delayed for two or three days. This was peremp- 
torily refused, and he was carried down to the Council hall 
to be again practised upon, " which," he says, " I was resolved 
to endeavour to undergo." Lord Melfort, however, met him 
in an ante-chamber, and renewed his friendly persuasions 
(which he did, it appears, by direction of the " Secret Com- 
mittee") that he should come to terms with the Privy Council, 
by making some reply to their interrogatories. " He was 
willing to grant," says Carstares, "that I should not be 
brought as a witness myself against any ; but I absolutely 
refused to say anything, till I obtained that my depositions 
should not be made use of at the bar of any judicature against 
any person whatsoever, which the Lord Melfort, after going 
twice or thrice from me to know the mind of the Council, 
did at last yield to ; when I objected the case of Mr. James 
Mitchell, as what did give me ground to fear that conditions 
would not be kept with me, he answered in these words : that 

that was a d d perjury, and the stain of the government, 

for which the present Earl of Lauderdale was forced to get 
a pardon. t Upon which reply I thought myself secure." 
On Melfort's reporting Carstares' capitulation to the Council, 
their Lordships drew up a paper embodying the terms, in 
which, however, their engagement not to use his evidence 
against any accused party is not so distinctly expressed, as his 

* Graham Dunlop MSS. Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 98, et seq. McCormick. 
Burnet, vol. ii. p. 430. Fountainhall, pp. 554, 556. 

t Mitchell, apprehended at Sharp's instigation, confessed to the Privy- 
Council, on the assurance that his life should be spared, that he had once 
fired at the Archbishop. After this, the Privy Council forwarded his con- 
fession to the Court of Justiciary; and Mitchell was, by that court, 
tortured, condemned, and executed. Lauderdale, Eothes, Sharp, and 
Hatton (who succeeded to the earldom of Lauderdale) all swore (falsely) 
that no promise of his life had been given him. Burton, vol. vii. pp. 482- 
490. 



96 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap 

own report of his agreement with Melfort would have led 
us to expect. The paper is as follows : — 

" Edinburgh, the 6th day of September, 1684.— The Lord-Chan- 
cellor having acquainted the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council 
that the Lord Thesaurer Depute, being by the Secret Committee 
appointed to treat and deal with Mr. William Carstares, for bringing 
him to an ingenuous confession upon the interrogatory yesterday 
put to him in the torture, that the said Lord Thesaurer Depute had 
brought him that length as that he would depone and be ingenuous, 
conform to, and in the terms mentioned, in the paper underwritten, 
exhibited by the Lord Thesaurer Depute, of which paper the tenor 
follows. — Primo : that the said Mr. William Carstares, upon his 
part, answer all interrogatories that shall be put to him betwixt 
and the 1st day of October, upon his great oath. — Secundo : the 
which he doing, in that case, the said Mr. Carstares shall have his 
Majesty's pardon for his life limb fortune and estate. — Tertio : 
that he shall never be brought as witness against any person what- 
somever, for things contained in his answers above named. — Quarto : 
and further the said Mr. Carstares shall never be interrogate, in 
torture, or out of torture, upon anything preceding the date of this 
paper, after the day above mentioned, except he himself be delated 
as accessory, and that accession to be after the date of these pre- 
sents, or his remission. — Quinto : that the Council shall allow one of 
their number to promise, in their name, the performance of their 
part, who shall promise, upon his word of honour, to see the pre- 
misses punctually observed on their part. — Sexto : that all being 
transacted on Mr. Carstares' part, as above said, the said Mr. Car- 
stares shall continue free prisoner only, and have a moderate allow- 
ance for his subsistence from the King, and shall be kept only till 
His Majesty think fit to grant his liberty. — Which paper being read 
and considered, by the Council, they do unanimously approve of the 
same, and haill articles thereof; and do hereby authorize and im- 
power the said Lord Thesaurer Depute to give his word of honour 
to the said Mr. William Carstares for performing the Council's part 
of the above-said articles contained in the said paper, in so far as 
relates to them, he the said Mr. William Carstares performing his 
part accordingly. 

" Extr. by me, Geokge Eae, CI. Deputatus Str. Clii." 

We shall soon see that the Council understood the bar- 
gain made in a sense different from that in which Carstares 



V.] TREACHERY OF THE COUNCIL. 97 

understood it, and that the terms for which he had specially 
stipulated with Melfort, and which Melfort told him the 
Council had granted, were deliberately violated. The paper 
given above is evidently the official document, as approved 
by the Privy Council. In the Graham Dunlop MSS. there is 
another paper (embodied in a continuation of the narrative 
from which I have already made several quotations), in which 
the terms are significantly different ; and these are, says Car- 
stares, " the conditions granted me, in the very words of my 
Lord Treasurer Depute." In this paper it is expressly pro- 
vided that Mr. William Carstares shall " never be brought 
as a witness, directly nor indirectly, against any person 
whatsoever." The omission of the words " directly nor in- 
directly," in the Council's copy of the conditions, left a loop- 
hole for the treachery of which they were afterwards guilty ; 
and the probability is that the one paper was adopted by the 
Council, and the other, including the words " directly nor 
indirectly," was accepted by Carstares, in the natural belief 
that the copy brought to him tallied exactly with that kept 
by the Council.* It is not likely that a man as shrewd as 
he, even though unnerved with pain, would accept, in writing 
conditions less satisfactory on the most vital point, than those 
which he had verbally discussed with the Lord Treasurer, 
and which the latter had not agreed to until after repeated 
consultations with his colleagues. 

At the same sitting, the Council ordered Carstares to be 
removed from the Tolbooth to the Castle. Spence, when 
expected to confess, had been sent thither as to " a place 
where he would be freest from any bad advice or impression ;" 
and now Carstares also is transferred, no doubt with the 
same intention. It was specially ordered that " none are to 
be permitted to speak or converse with him, and particularly 
Mr. William Spence is not to be suffered to see him, and a 

* Carstares' copy is given, as it stands in the MS. by Wodrow, vol. iv. 
p. 102 ; who also gives the interrogatories prescribed before the torture. 
As it does not appear that these were afterwards adhered to, I do not think 
it necessary to reproduce them here. They will be found in Wodrow, 
vol. iv. p. 100. 

H 



98 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

surgeon is allowed him for his cure." After a day's repose 
he was called before the Lords of the Secret Committee, who 
met in the Castle to examine him. They put a number of 
queries to him, which, according to his promise, he answered. 
They then framed his answers into a " deposition,"* in which 
the questions that elicited them are suppressed, and the 
answers are reported, not exactly as he gave them, but in a 
condensed form, which did not appear to Carstares to do 
full justice to his statements. Worn out with pain and 
anxiety as he was, he signed it, however, and it was carried 
off to the Privy Council. 

* See Appendix. 



VI.] 



CHAPTER VI. 

Publication of Deposition — At Stirling — Trial of Jerviswood — Use of 
Carstares' Deposition — Release — Return to Holland. 

Carstares' deposition is not preserved in the registers of the 
Privy Council, and appears never to have been recorded 
therein. Whatever may have been the reason for this sup- 
pression, it was not any desire to bury his statements in 
oblivion. The digest of them, framed by the Council, was 
kept for ten days, after which he was again examined in the 
Castle,* and " adhered to his former deposition in all the parts 
of it ;" such, at least, was the allegation of the Privy Council. 
Within a few hours afterwards, men were hawking through 
the streets of Edinburgh a paper entitled ' Mr. Carstares' 
Confession.' Some of the chief members of the Council 
had told Carstares that the deposition was to be published. 
He had strenuously remonstrated, but to no purpose. He 
said he had indeed put his name to the paper as his depo- 
sition, but it was a very unfair version of what he had 
actually stated. It neither contained the interrogatories put to 
him, nor " the just extenuations," both as to the plot itself 
and the persons he had named, with which he had guarded 
his statements. Had he not been, at the first examination, 
in such " disorder " from pain and other causes as to be in- 
capable of calm reflection, he should not have been thus 
taken advantage of ; and on the second examination he had 
not been allowed to make any alterations in the prepared 

* Wodrow states that he was removed to Dunbar ton Castle on the 13th ; 
but he was at Edinburgh on the 18th of September. 

H 2 



100 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



reports of the first.* What stung Carstares most in the 
injustice of this publication of a deposition, which he had 
considered was to be the private property of the Privy 
Council, was the suspicion of unfaithfulness to his friends to 
which he imagined it would expose him. The public — know- 
ing nothing, possibly, of the torture he had undergone, and 
believing that (as Sprat alleged) no undue means had been 
used to obtain a single confession about the plot — would read 
the garbled version of his disclosures, and would haste to 
the conclusion that he had bought an ignominious safety, by 
the betrayal of his companions. On a superficial view of the 
deposition, and with no knowledge of its secret history, such 
a conclusion might seem natural enough. But a careful 
examination of the document, garbled as it was, would show 
that Carstares really unfolded nothing that he did not 
believe either to be already known, or to concern persons 
whom his statements could not injure ; and these statements, 
it must be remembered, he had, by strict treaty with the 
Council, provided should never be employed in any court of 
justice whatsoever. He had therefore made his declaration 
with a clear conscience, and he felt all the more keenly the 
moral cruelty of his persecutors, in exposing him to unde- 
served suspicion of treachery towards his friends. " I doubt 
not," he writes, " my friend, but you will have the charity 
for me to believe that death would have been more welcome 
than life attended with the prejudice of my friends • and I 
can, in great sincerity, say that death was digged for by me 
as for hid treasures." 

On the 27th of September a warrant was signed by the 
Earl of Murray, Secretary of State, authorizing " a letter of 
remission to be passed (per saltum) under the great seal of 
Scotland, indemnifying and remitting unto Mr. William 
Carstares all crimes preceding the date hereof."t He was 
not, however, set at liberty, but was removed to Stirling 
Castle, where he was still kept a prisoner, though allowed to 

* GrahamDunlopMSS. ' Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,' vol. ix. p. 192. 
t Graham Dimlop MSS. 



VI.] IN STIRLING CASTLE. 101 

be at large within the walls of the fortress. He writes thence 
to his wife, on the 4th of December : — 

" My Dearest, — I had yours on Saturday last, and am glad to 
hear of your being in very tolerable health, though sorry that you 
are in the least indisposed. I long indeed to have you with me, 
and shall have no small satisfaction in your return, though it should 
be attended with disappointments of what you and I both would 
have desired. God does all things well, and as he is a jealous, 

so is he a compassionate, God I would fain think he will 

never forget what he did for my soul in Tenterden, and the Gate- 
house : he allured me then into the wilderness ; and how great 
terror soever I was under, yet he spake comfortably to me ; and it 

was, I hope, a time of love, the fruits whereof will remain 

Have a care of yourself. It is like that business, which you wait 
for, when you have got it, will neither please you nor me, but we 
must be silent and patient. If you have money, I would have you 
acknowledge my Lord Register's gentleman, for he was civil to me, 
and I suppose to you too ; it is he that came to the Castle for me. 

My duty to my very dear parents. I am much concerned 

for my mother's indisposition. Pray let me hear how she is. I 
would not have you leave her till she be pretty well ; and so soon 
as that is, haste you, so soon as your affairs will allow, to, my 
dearest, thine own most affectionate husband, 

" W. C." 

Meantime the Lords of the Council were maturing one of 
the most nefarious of their many unjust procedures. Eobert 
Baillie, of Jerviswood, had long been hated and suspected by 
the government of the Restoration. A chivalrous, gifted, 
and devout champion of freedom could not fail to be ob- 
noxious to a government, which dreaded every development 
of civil, intellectual, and religious liberty. His attachment 
to Presbytery incurred for him the enmity of the prelates. 
His attachment to the political rights of his country incurred 
for him the enmity of the government. He had been asso- 
ciated with Dunlop, and the other promoters of the scheme of 
emigration to South Carolina. He had, at the same time, as 
we have seen, taken a leading share in those negotiations, by 
which the patriots of England and Scotland hoped to secure 
such a change of policy, and of measures, from the government 



102 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 



of Charles, as should reconcile the liberties of the subject 
with the prerogatives of the crown. He was no republican 
or revolutionist. He was, like Argyll, Stair, Fletcher, Car- 
stares, and other leading Scotchmen of the time, content 
with monarchical government, if only the monarch would not 
override the law and the constitution ; and though a keener 
Presbyterian than any of these, he was not irreconcilably 
hostile to an episcopal establishment, should that establish- 
ment but admit the doctrines and practice of toleration. A 
man of chivalrous honour, of loyal sentiments, and of high 
religious principle, the vulgar intrigues and projects of blood- 
shed and assassination, in which Ferguson delighted to 
dabble, were abhorrent to his nature. He loved his country, 
and religion and freedom, with a pure and high-hearted 
affection, which, for their sake, would not shrink from danger, 
obloquy, and ruin, but would not stoop to arts like " the 
plotter's." It was, however, an alleged complicity with the 
originators of the Kyehouse Plot that the Privy Council 
resolved to bring home to him. No legal evidence had been 
found to inculpate him in that or any other plot ; but, after 
several months' imprisonment, he had been ordered to 
answer on oath certain ensnaring questions of the Council, 
and on his refusal was fined £6000 sterling, although he had 
already suffered a long and severe incarceration.* Such a fine 
was virtually equivalent to a forfeiture ; and he remained in 
prison, utterly unable to pay it. He was now an old man 
and feeble, and his health, impaired through the rigour of 
his confinement, rapidly declined. But the Council were 
determined he should not escape. No new evidence had 
reached them on which they could proceed ; but as he was 
likely to die, and thus " escape and prevent fining or any 
other punishment whatever,"! the old evidence must be made 
to suffice. On the 22nd of December his indictment was 
served upon him, charging him with traitorous conspiracy 
against his Majesty's person and government; and on the 
next day he was carried, "in his nightgown," to the bar, 
* Fountainhall, vol. ii. p. 555. f Ibid. 



VI.] CABSTABE& DEPOSITION. 103 

where, so worn and weak as to need the support of frequent 
cordials, he underwent his trial.* The evidence was vague 
and insufficient, but the Lord Advocate was prepared to 
buttress it with a disgraceful prop. This was the deposition 
of Carstares. 

Carstares had been fetched from Stirling, and " earnestly- 
desired, and pressed with many arguments," to appear in 
court, and make ever so brief a declaration as to Jerviswood's 
connection with the London negotiations. This he had 
indignantly and absolutely refused to do. He was told that 
if he would do this, it would be so arranged that he should 
not be confronted with the prisoner. " If it were possible," 
replied Carstares, " I had rather die a thousand deaths than 
be a witness against any that have trusted me."| Would he 
then, he was asked, appear before the Lords of the Council, 
and own, judicially, that he had emitted the depositions 
which had been published in his name. This too he posi- 
tively declined. The paper containing his original signature 
was then produced, and he was asked if that was his signa- 
ture. He owned that it was, but took the opportunity of 
reminding his interlocutors (who were the Earl of Perth, the 
Duke of Queensberry, and one or two other Privy Coun- 
cillors) of the express conditions, on which he had appended 
that signature to their digest of his deposition. This inter- 
view was not held at a regular meeting of the Council. Next 
day, however, Carstares' deposition was produced in court, 
and sworn to by two clerks of the Council as having been 
originally signed by him, and as having been adhered to, 
and " renewed upon oath before the Lords of his Majesty s 
Privy Council" on the 22nd of December. The deposition 
was then taken up by the Lord Advocate, and used as an 
" adminicle of prolation " in the trial.J 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 105. 

f Graham Dunlop MSS. 

% ' The Tryal and Process of High Treason, &c, against Mr. Robert 
Baillie, &c. By his Majesties special command, as a further Proof of the 
late Fanatical Conspiracy.' Edinburgh, 1685. 



104 WILLIAM. CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Sir George Mackenzie, in the course of a speech in which 
he took pains to identify the Kyehouse Plot with the larger 
design of Kussell and Argyll, charged Baillie with a leading 
part in the worst schemes of Ferguson.* He was in close 
correspondence, he averred, " with Ferguson the contriver, 
Shephard the thesaurer, and Carstares the chaplain of the 
conspiracy." Carstares, he continued, was a " chief conspi- 
rator," and after suffering " violent torture " rather than dis- 
close the plot, deponed to all those facts which tended to 
incriminate Jerviswood, and twice reiterated his deposition 
on oath " after much premeditation." With a refinement of 
treachery, Sir George proceeded to connect Carstares' re- 
luctance to depone at all with the knowledge that his depo- 
sition was to be used against his friend, and to found an 
argument upon that honourable " scrupulosity " which the 
Privy Council had cheated and overreached. "Mr. Car- 
stares knew," he said, " when he was to depone, that his depo- 
sition was to be used against Jerviswood ; and he stood more 
in awe of his love to his friend than of the fear of the tor- 
ture, and hazarded rather to die for Jerviswood than that 
Jerviswood should die by him. How can it then be imagined 
that if this man had seen Jerviswood in his trial it would 
have altered his deposition ; or that this kindness, which we 
all admired in him, would have suffered him to forget any- 
thing in his deposition, which might have been advantageous 
in the least to his friend ? And they understand ill this 
height of friendship, who think that it would not have been 
more nice and careful than any advocate could have been ; 
and if Carstares had forgot at one time, would he not have 
supplied it at another ; but especially at this last time, when 
he knew his friend was already brought upon his trial, and 
that this renewed testimony was yet a further confirmation 
of what was said against him ? And albeit the King's ser- 
vants were forced to engage that Carstares himself should 
not be made use of as a witness against Jerviswood, yet I 
think this kind of scrupulosity in Carstares for Jerviswood 
* ' Tryai; p. 30. 



VI.] BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 105 

should convince you more than twenty suspect, nay, than even 
indifferent, witnesses."* 

Jerviswood, who had listened, with evident amazement, 
to the Lord Advocate's speech, said a few words when he had 
finished, emphatically denying all participation in any 
design against the King or the Duke of York. Then, looking 
his accuser full in the face, he said, " My Lord, I think 
it strange you should charge me with such abominable 
things. When you came to me in the prison you told me 
such things were laid to my charge, but that you did not 
believe them. Are you convinced, in your conscience, I am 
now more guilty than before ? You remember what passed 
betwixt us in the prison?" "Jerviswood," replied Mac- 
kenzie, "I own what you say. My thoughts were then as 
a private man, but what I say here is by special direction 
of the Privy Council. He " (pointing to Sir William Pater- 
son) "knows my orders." "Well," said Jerviswood, "if 
your Lordship has one conscience for yourself, and another 
for the Council, I pray God forgive you. I do. My Lords, 
I trouble your Lordships no further." 

The trial lasted till past midnight. Next morning the 
jury found him guilty. He was a dying man, and, says 
Fountainhall, " the holy days of Yule were approaching," so 
the government, at once bloodthirsty and pious, could not 
delay the sacrifice. The Court of Justiciary, ever the obe- 
dient assistant of the Privy Council, sentenced him to be 
hanged, drawn, and quartered the same afternoon, between 
two and four o'clock. Within two days of the serving of his 
indictment, and within five hours of the pronouncing of his 
sentence, he was to die. " My Lords," he said, as he left the 
bar, " the time is short, the sentence is sharp ; but I thank 
my G-ocl who hath made me as fit to die as ye are to live."t 
He was executed in the afternoon. He had to be helped up 
the ladder. When he got up he began to speak. " My faint 

* 'Tryal,' p. 35. ' State Trials,' vol. x. p. 686 et seq. Fountainhall, 
vol. ii. pp. 587-95. 

t Wodrow, vol. iv. pp. 106-12. 



106 WILLIAM CARS TABES. [Chap. 



zeal for the Protestant religion," he said, " has brought me 
to this end." At this the drumsjvere ordered to beat ; he 
was silent, and the sentence was carried out.* 

Whatever may be thought of the justice or injustice of the 
prosecution and condemnation of Jerviswood, the employment 
of Carstares' deposition at his trial was indefensible, and 
plainly violated the conditions made between the deponent 
and the Council. This was admitted by the Lords of the 
Council themselves- When Carstares heard what had been 
done, he went to the Lord Clerk Eegistrar, Sir George Mac- 
kenzie, of Tarbat, afterwards Viscount Tarbat, and com- 
plained of the gross injury that had been inflicted on him. 
" He told me," writes Carstares, "that he was as angry at it 
as I could be ; but that the deposition was not offered by the 
advocate as a legal proof, or sustained as such." He went, 
next, to the Lord Advocate ; but the only satisfaction he got 
from him was the flimsy excuse, that at the time of Carstares' 
agreement with the Council he had been ill, and did not know 
what had been agreed upon. Carstares then sought an inter- 
view with the Chancellor, the Duke of Queensberry, the Lord 
Clerk Eegistrar, and the President of the Court of Session, 
and anew represented the wrong done him through the trea- 
cherous use of his deposition. The Chancellor called for the 
record of the agreement, and having read it, said there had 
undoubtedly been a breach of the conditions, but all he could 
say was that it should not be repeated. For the stain which 
the whole transaction tended to cast on his honour ; for the 
positive breach of the Council's solemn engagement ; for the 
deliberate falsehoods by which the Lord Advocate had attri- 
buted to him a knowledge of the Council's design to use his 
deposition, and a renewal of it, on oath, with this knowledge 
and at the very time of his friend's trial, Carstares could 
receive no redress. 

* " The Lady Graden, a daughter of Warriston's, and his sister-in-law, 
with a more than masculine courage, stayed on the scaffold till all his body 
was cut in coupons, and went with the hangman to see them oiled and 
tarred." Fountainhall, vol. ii. p. 594. 



VI.] ONCE MORE AT LIBERTY. 107 

It was not until the better days had dawned that such 
reparation as was possible was obtained. In July 1690 
Carstares petitioned the Parliament, that " in testimony of 
their abhorrence of so foul a breach of public faith, the sacred- 
ness whereof is the security of a government," they should 
order his misused depositions to be " razed, and for ever delete 
out of the records of these courts where, contrary to the 
public faith, they were made use of." This petition, which 
was accompanied by a brief narrative of the transactions 
which we have examined, was found, on investigation, to be 
" sufficiently instructed, and verified by a declaration under 
my Lord Tarbat's hand of the date of these presents, and 
other testimonies." The Parliament declared that Carstares 
was " highly injured contrary to the public faith," and 
ordained his petition and accompanying letter to be " recorded 
in the books of Parliament, and books of adjournal, or any 
other Court books wherein his testimony was made use of."* 

Carstares was informed by the Lord Chancellor, at the 
interview which he had with him and the other lords, after 
Jerviswood's trial, that he might now consider himself a free 
man. By the way of indemnifying him for what he had 
undergone, an offer was made to defray the expenses he had 
incurred during his imprisonment. This he decliued ; nor 
would he even memorialise the King, as he was advised (by 
Melfort, apparently), " to consider his trouble and losses." 
His reply to these amiable suggestions was, that from the 
government of the King he would not accept a farthing ; and 
that he would never return to his native soil until he saw 
things there go " in another channel."! He resolved to leave 
Scotland at once ; but it was the 20th of February, before he 
could get his passport. Then he set out for England. It 

* ' Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,' vol. ix. p. 192 ; and Appendix of 
same vol. p. 161. Carstares states, in one of the Graham Dunlop MSS., and 
also in the letter above referred to, that notwithstanding Perth's promise 
that no further use should be made of his deposition, he had been informed 
that it was read in the Parliament of 1685, " in the cases of some that 
were then forfeited." See, in proof of this, Fountainhall, vol. ii. p. 644. 

f ' Acts of Parliament,' ubi supra. 



108 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

must have been a sad enough journey. He was again to be 
an exile. He was leaving — in all probability for the last 
time — his parents and kindred. Keen and angry feelings had 
embittered their few days together. For some time after his 
release from prison his father, irritated at his political em- 
broilments, had refused to see him * 

His wife accompanied him, suffering from illness. " It is 
your great mercy and my great satisfaction, that your 
husband is so far away," he writes to his sister Sarah, " and 
I hope God will order things so that he shall not see Scot- 
land till he may with safety, which now he cannot." t He 
went by sea to London, where Lord Melfort was at the 
time. He applied for a passport for the Continent, which 
his Lordship promised he should have; but appeared to 
•think he should wait upon the King, before leaving the 
country. The king was now that grim bigot, whose ex- 
clusion from the throne had been one of the principles of 
the Whig association, for his connection with which Carstares 
had suffered so painfully.^ The severities of the earlier 
years of Charles's reign had not been prompted by any 
special excess of intolerance, or love of arbitrary power, on his 
own part. They had been rather the result of a violent re- 
action in public feeling, and in the political forces of England, 
which told malignantly upon the class in Scotland that 
sought to grasp the reins of power, under the King. But the 
liberals and Presbyterians had not been wrong, in thinking 
that they discerned in the policy of Charles's later years the 
influence of a spirit far more relentless and inhuman, more 
bitter and rigid, than his own or that of his earlier advisers, 
and in ascribing that spirit to the Duke of York. Carstares 
had no desire for any passages of courtesy with one, whom he 
regarded as the chief oppressor of his country, the harshest 
foe of Presbytery and political freedom, and beyond the 
limits of whose gloomy jurisdiction he was about to fly, in 
despair of finding liberty or peace within them. He told 

* ' Analecta,' vol. iii. p. 51. f Graham Dunlop MSS. 

% Charles had died on the 6th of February. 



VI.] RETURN TO HOLLAND. 109 

Melfort that if lie were to wait upon King James, he should 
feel constrained to say several things to him which would 
reflect but little honour on his Majesty's servants and admi- 
nistration in Scotland, and that the interview could be agree- 
able to neither. Melfort, on reflection, " thought it more 
advisable to dispense with that ceremony."* The less the 
King heard or saw of Carstares, he said, the better. He 
advised him to go abroad, and live there quietly ; and with- 
out further delay gave him his passport for Holland.! After 
an absence -of two years, almost the whole of which he had 
spent in a variety of prisons, the Gatehouse, the Tolbooth, 
and the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling, he once more 
found friendly shelter and repose among the Dutch, and 
beside those other British exiles, to whom the Commonwealth 
afforded a temporary home. 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 100. t McCormick, p. 24. 



HO WILLIAM CAB ST ABES. [Chap. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Peace — Tour, and Journal. 

Carstares left his wife behind him in England, until he 
should settle where he was to pitch his tent abroad. It is 
probably to this we owe the careful journal, which records his 
journeyings during part of the summer of 1685, while he was 
wandering about Holland, and through the regions of the 
Khine and the Meuse. This journal is printed among the 
' Caldwell Papers ;' and I give it just as it stands in Part I. 
of that valuable collection ; only excluding a few sentences 
about the foreign nunneries, in which the writer might be 
thought to step across the boundaries of modern propriety. 
The original MS. was given by Carstares to his cousin 
William Mure, and is now at Caldwell. It is written in 
Carstares' own hand, in a small parchment-bound memoran- 
dum book. 

It is noteworthy that in this journal Carstares, although 
writing at the very crisis of their disastrous expeditions, never 
refers to Monmouth, and only once, in a merely incidental 
way, to Argyll. He must have followed their fortunes with 
the keenest interest that a partizan and former associate 
could feel ; and yet, even in his private diary, he does not 
allow one compromising allusion to slip from his pen. No- 
thing could tell more forcibly than this designed omission, 
with what sharpness the iron of persecution had entered into 
his soul. Argyll sailed from Holland on the 1st of May ; 
published, at Campbelton, the declaration, drawn up by 
James Steuart, which set forth the wrongs of Scotland that 
he hoped to redress (among which a prominent place was 



VII.] JOURNAL OF TBAVEL. Ill 

given to the torture of Carstares * and misuse of his deposi- 
tion), strove, in vain, to rouse a dispirited country, and to 
animate his own few and discordant forces ; was foiled, 
deserted, captured, taken to Edinburgh, and beheaded, before 
the 1st of July.t Monmouth landed at Lyme on the 11th of 
June, fought his hapless fight of Sedgmoor on the 5th of 
July, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 15th. Car- 
stares' Journal begins with May the 10th, and ends with 
July 6th. 

JOUENAL. 

"We landed at Newport, May 10th, having struck several 
times on the ground in our entering the channell leading to 
it. 

"May 11. We came to 'Bruges, which is seven hours 
from Newport. In companie we had a secular priest, who 
discoursing with me in Latin about the affairs of England, 
told me that he did believe there would be a change of 
religion there, and that his Majestie, for removing of scruples, 
would in the ensuing Parliament take some course for taking 
away all fears of the restitution of Abbey lands to the Church 
of Kome. There was in our company a gentlewoman who 
lamented the abounding superstition and ignorance of the 
times, giveing an instance of one whom she knew, who being 
sick of an ague did, according to some advice given to her, 
read frequentlie some sentences in order to a cure ; and being 
askt by this gentlewoman how she durst adventure to doe so, 
seeing it would be difficult for her to obtain an absolution for 
such a practice, she answered that tho' one father had 
refused to doe it yet another did, which she and others in our 
company did disprove of. I heard likeways in this company 
of one Monsr. Mons, one of the learned preachers of Bruges, 
who had been lately silenced by the Bishop, because he did 
by his subtle notions suggest so many scruples to the people 

* See Declaration in Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 286. 

f For original narrative, see ' Case of Earl Argyll,' &c., in Advocates' 
Library Pamphlets, vol. cclii. 



112 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

that they did not know what to do. What were his doctrines 
I could not distinctly learn ; only I heard that one was, that 
after the wife had conceived the husband ought not to bed 
with her. 

"At night in my quarters at Bruges I came to supp 
with some gentlemen, one of whom falling into discourse 
about England, told me that some extraordinary thing was 
set on foot by the French, or Dutch and others, for dis- 
quieting the King of England, which would suddenly make a 
great noise in the world, and would come as a clapp as it 
were of thunder, or some unsuspected thing. I found also 
this day in discourse a great expectation of some disagree- 
ment betwixte the Kings of England and France. 

" May 12. I took boat from Bruges to Sluyse, which is 
three hours. N othing occurred remarkable this day. 

" May 13. I took boat from Middleburgh to Port ; nothing 
occurred worthie noticeing. 

" May 14. At night I came to Port, where, upon the 16th 
I discoursed with a Dutch gentleman, who, as he told me, 
had been severall times in company and familiar converse 
with Cardinal Norfolk at Kome three years agoe or more ; 
who speaking of England told him, that whatever noise there 
was at present of popish conspiracies, yet in a little time 
things should be so that England should be popish. 

" On the 20th in the afternoon I went from Port, and 
came to the Bosch earlie next morning, when I had occasion 
at supper to discourse with a Burgomaster of Amsterdam, 
and another gentleman that had latelie come from the East 
Indies, having been in some considerable office at Battavia. 
Among other things we came to speak about the business of 
Bantam and the ruin of the English factory there, of which 
the last gentleman gave us an account, shewing that the old 
King of Bantam had willingly resigned the government to 
his son, but would have afterwards reassumed it ; which the 
son not being willing to part with, a warr did thereupon 
ensue, the father haveing been assisted by the English and 
French, the son by the Dutch ; who being conqueror, would 



VIL] JOURNAL. 113 

have destroyed the English, but that the Dutch interposed 
for the preserving both their persons and goods, tho' their 
factorie was from that time ruined in that place. This gentle- 
man told us that he came in company with a Dutch Ambas- 
sador from Batavia to Bantam, where they were very civilie 
received by the King, who was he said a man of under- 
standing, but lived like a beast with his wifes and mistresses, 
and entertained him almost with no discourse but of them, 
and that the most immodest, even in the presence of one of 
the chief of them, who was sitting by decked richlie with 
Jewells. He ledd them also to his father who was his pri- 
soner; and tho' he detained him as such, yet when he 
came into his presence, he did him all the honour and obeis- 
ance that became a son to doe to a father. But falling into 
discourse with him upon the late businesse that had been 
betwixte them, the old man only replyed : * Son, fortune hath 
given you the victorie, and there is no place for discoursing 
those things with the Conquerour ; and so would undertake 
no discourse further upon the subject. The Burgomaster 
upon this occasion told me what I much wondered at, that 
the East India Companie of Holland had very little advant- 
age by the India trade, they haveing not above four in the 
hundereth, which he had reason to know, because he himselfe 
had a stock in it. He also told me that two or three days 
before the time of my discourse with him, there had been a 
friendship made betwixt the King of England and the Prince 
of Orange. 

" On the 2 2d, I went before four o'clock in the morning 
in the post waggon, which is very commodious, and haveing 
only two wheels goes with an easinesse beyond what could 
well be thought before try all. In those waggons we goe to 
Maestricht from the Bosch in one day, which is near seventy 
English myles. We change horses six times by the way, 
which is most part heathie, but not without, in some places, 
pleasant groves of trees and corn fields ; we dine at a place 
called Hammond, which is about halfe way, and before we 
come to it we come to a prettie large town called Endoven, 

i 



114 WILLIAM CAESTABES. [Chap. 

which is well watered ; the fields about Maestricht are very 
pleasant, and the river of the Maes adds much to the beautie 
of the place. From thence there is occasion every morning 
at nine of the clock to goe by water to Liege, where you 
arrive about six or seven at night. It is but eighteen myles 
from Maestricht, but it is against the stream. 

" On the 23 I came to Aiken * by waggon, betwixt which and 
Maestricht the country is hillie, but pleasant, and abounds with 
much wood, as also it doeth about Aiken which hath hills 
round about, itselfe being prettie large but not very populous ; 
it stands upon the descent of a hill, part of it on the hill, — part 
on the plain. Thither they come from all parts for the 
Baiths, and the water, which is drunk by many and thought 
good against many distempers. The fountain of this hot 
water is in a publick place of the town, and there are two 
distinct places for men and women to retire themselves to 
after drinking of their water. The Baiths are within houses, 
and in one house you shall have severall rooms, where there 
are some greater, some lesser, baths, that will goe to the 
midle of an ordinarie man and somewhat deeper. The waters 
are lett in by conduits into these rooms, in which there is as 
it were a great cistern, into which you goe down by steps 
and there bathe. 

" There is a place without the Citie a bowshot, called Putsen, 
where there are also good baths. 

" This little town is under the jurisdiction of an Abbey of 
the same name which I did see ; the ladies are very civill 
and readie to shew anything that is to be seen ; they are all 
persons of good qualitie, for none but such as are noble for 
eight generations upon both the father and mother's side are 
admitted into it, as I was informed. The Abbesse hath great 
revenues. There are in Aiken severall of the reformed 
religion, and some of them rich, but cannot meet within the 
citie, but they have their severall Churches about three myles 
without the citie, within the territories of the States Gene- 
rail. There is a French Church, and a Calvanist Dutch Church, 
* Aachen, or Aix-la-Chapelle. 



VIL] JOURNAL. 115 

and a Lutheran Church. I went to hear the Dutch minister, who 
is an orthodox man and concerned for the Protestant interests, 
He is a German; upon acquaintance with him I found him very 
civil! and desirous to know how it went with the Dissenters in 
Brittain. I saw in this Dutch congregation a gentleman of good 
qualitie in Switzerland, and a Lieut. Coll. under the King of 
France, and much respected by him ; I was very much taken 
with his seriousness and attention in hearing ; the minister 
did very much commend him to me ; his name is Mons. de 
Salis. In Aiken is a very pretty garden of the Capucins, in 
which they allow strangers to walk at pleasure. The Papists 
of this place boast much of the reliques that are here, some 
of which are shewn but once in seven years, which causeth a 
great concourse of people. I had acquaintance here with two 
brothers, merchants, of the name of Romer, whom I found 
very obligeing ; and one Mons. Holts, that lodge th strangers. 
" On the 27th I went to convoy a friend and his wife to 
Maestricht, at which time I had an opportunitie of viewing 
the place better than I had before. Amongst other things I 
went to a hill halfe a myle or a myle from the citie, which is 
all hollow underneath, there being many windings and turn- 
ings all cutt out of stone, and the height ordinarlie of the 
vault will be 20 foot. I had a guide and a torch, and did 
walk near two English myles under that hill, and came out 
again at another passage, near a cloister which stands very 
pleasantlie upon the descent of the hill, at the foot whereof 
runns the river of the Maes, and from which there is a very 
pleasant prospect. This cloister hath pleasant gardens. I 
fell into discourse with one of the chiefe fathers of it ; his 
name as I remember was Corcelius ; who seemed to be 
a man of some learning, and I am sure of great vanity and 
confidence ; for he told me he would make it out that 
nothing was maintained now by Papists but what was re- 
ceived in the four first centuries, and nothing maintained by 
Protestants as such but what was then condemned ; and that 
he or some of his brethren had written against one of the 
ministers of Maestricht but had gott yet no answer, tho' he 

i 2 



116 WILLIAM CARSTAIiES. [Chap. 

much longed for it. He also told me, without my asking, 
but upon discourse about English affairs, that at Brussels he 
had spoke with the present King of Brittain six hours in 
end, and that he did communicat thrice in their convent, not 
being desirous to goe to the publick Churches ; he told me 
also that he had a letter from a father that was present 
at the action, telling him that the late King died Catholick, 
receiving the Sacrament and holy unction. And yet this 
did not seem to reconcile him to him, for he said he had pro- 
fessed himselfe Papist at Bruges, but had disowned that 
religion when he came to his kingdoms, and thereupon made 
use of the words of our blessed Lord : ' he that denyeth me 
before men I will deny him &c.' He told me likewise that 
his present Majestie of Britain had some of their order at 
Brussells, which he brought out of England with him ; one 
of which was his confessor ; but that they all went in other 
clothes than that of their order, which was the Minorites. 
He likewise told me of some private contrivances that there 
were on foot betwixt some Protestant Princes and the Pope 
about a reconciliation, and amongst other things that were 
sought by those princes, this was one : that the married 
Clergie might retain their wifes ; but this he told me would 
be a businesse that would come to light shortly. What 
truth is in these things I cannot determine. 

" At Maestricht, ever since it came under the States go- 
vernment, the Papists and Protestants both have the publick 
exercise of their religion; but the former have more 
churches than the latter, and I am apt to think more of the 
inhabitants of the town for their followers ; this they obtained 
by articles betwixt the Spaniard and the States, upon the 
first surrendering of the town to the later. These articles 
were also confirmed, upon the King of France his leaving 
that town a few years agoe, and with this addition, that the 
Jesuits, who for some contrivances against the States had 
been by them banished the town, should be readmitted, as 
they are and have now there a great Church. On the 30th, 
I returned to Aiken, where I was told of these two customs ; 



VII.] JOURNAL. 117 

one that at each corner of the town, upon a turret, stands a 
man and gives notice upon the approach of any man upon 
horseback to the town, by so many windings of his horn as 
there are horsemen comeing. Another which I saw was that 
when there is a very good and fatt oxe to be slain by a 
butcher, he is lead through the town, decked with flowers and 
a pipe playing before him, that the people may see him and 
be induced to buy pieces of him. Another custom they have, 
that they have a fair in one parish of the Citie, and not in 
another at the same time ; but have in the severall parts of 
the town fairs at different seasons. 

" While I was at Aikin I had occasion to be in company 
with one of the Popish ministers of that town. The man 
seemed to be of a good humour, and entertained me and 
some others at his house very kindly and invited me again 
to his house ; but I went not. He seemed to be bigott in 
his religion, and not without learning. I had been but a few 
minutes in his company, when perceiving, I know not how, 
that I was of the reformed religion, he would needs have me 
to debate with him about our principles. I told him that he 
was gray-haired in his religion, and no doubt well read in 
controversies about, which made me afraid to encounter with 
him ; notwithstanding we fell into some discourse about the 
marriage of the clergie. He told me that was the great 
thing that galled us ; and so began to jest upon our mi- 
nisters for their wifes. I only answered him that whatever 
he said of the wifes of our ministers, yet I should not enter- 
tain him with discourse of the wenches of their clergie ; which 
stirred him a little, and made him solemnlie protest that he 
not only never knew a woman, but never lusted after any ; I 
suppose he meant since a Clergieman. Yet this man would 
drink drunk, and I myself saw him in such a condition upon 
a Lord's day at night that he was ashamed to come into my 
companie, and my Landlady putt to apologise for him as 
being easilie overtaken, and having been at some extraordi- 
narie encounter. Bat I remember one thing in our discourse 
about the Apostles some of them having wifes, which I 



118 WILLIAM CABS TABES. [Chap 

could not chuse but smile at, and it was this : that having 
granted to me that some of them had wifes, which they did 
carrie about with them for serving and being otherwayes use- 
full to them, but that, after their being Apostles, they did 
never know their wifes, and that it was my part to prove 
that they did. At which I, heartilie laughing, told him he 
putt a very hard task upon me, which I could not under- 
take ; for I supposed he did not doubt but there were many 
married people in Aiken concerning whom I did believe he 
could scarce prove what he would have had me do as to the 
other. 

" This man told me also in discourse about the decay of the 
Latin tongue and increase of the French ; that he had a case 
of conscience which he proposed to some great Doctors at 
Liege in Latin ; but that to his astonishment they did not 
understand him, but desired him to do it in French. This 
man told me that in Aikin there were four parishes., and that 
he himselfe had in his parish two thousand of age to comrnu- 
nicat ; so that I judge there may be nine thousand commu- 
nicants in the citie ; for some parishes he told me were larger 
than his. Being in company with him and some regular 
Canonicks, he told them they had an easie life in respect of 
what he had, for they had nothing but their prayers to mind, 
but he both preaching, prayer, visiting the sick &c. 

" They have in this town a sword, which is said to have 
been worn by Charles the great, and some other royalties, 
that must be made use of at the instalment of every empe- 
rour. The people here are civill ; a stranger of any fashion 
passing through the streets is almost troubled with salutes. — 
June 9. I went from Aikin to Maestricht, and next day 
from thence to Luych * by water, in a large boat drawn by 
five horses. We were seven hours longe upon our way, but 
it is exceeding pleasant through the hills on both sides, 
covered either with wood or corn. One may have meat and 
drink aboard. I went out at a place a myle on this side 
Liege called Harstall ; from whence you can goe on foot 
* So written. Liege. 



VII.] JOURNAL. 119 

much sooner than by the boat to Liege. It belongs to the 
Prince of Orange ; but the inhabitants are papists. Liege 
is a great and very well peopled citie. It lyes part upon a 
plain along the river Maes which divides it, over which 
there is a very fair bridge of stone, and part on pleasant hills, 
on one of which the English Jesuits have a very fine house, 
and a curious garden lying upon the side of a high hill 
towards the south, and that above the house, though even 
before you come to the house you must goe up near fourscore 
steps from the ground. The garden hath pleasant Parterras 
and walks one above the other to a considerable height. 
Upon a very high hill overtopping the citie the prince is 
building a Cittadell to keep it in subjection. There was, 
indeed, one there before, but in the year 72 it was taken 
and demolished by the French in part, but wholly by the 
citizens, who were glad to have that restraint upon their 
liberties taken away ; but through their late divisions among 
themselves grounded upon their liberties, the Prince hath 
gott his will of them, and hath built a kind of a fort in 
fashion of a gate upon the middle of the bridge, in which he 
hath some pieces of cannon and some few souldiers. This he 
did to keep the two parts of the town from meeting together. 
He hath laid a sore taxe upon the cittie for defraying the 
expenses of his fortifications and other things. But it is 
thought that this cittie will not remain long in peace. They 
told me that it, together with its district which is but a small 
bounds, can send forth upon a necessarie occasion above an 
hundereth thousand fighting men. Here I saw the iron 
mills, and how they make the potts, which they send in 
great quantities to all places. Here they also make allum, 
and have abundance of coal and wood. 

" Here I saw also a solemn procession, which I blesse God 
did convince me afresh of the folly of poprie. There are 
scarce any protestants in this citie ; yet I was told by one 
that hath traded with this place near fourtie years, that 
there are many that out of fear own poprie, who if occasion 
did offer would professe the reformed religion ; and that 



120 WILLIAM CAR STARES. [Chap. 

there was one worth 15000 lib st., that did openlie own him- 
selfe Protestant, and keep fast to his principles ; bnt that he 
hath been so troubled by his enemies, that with much adoe 
he obtained a year's time to dispose of his goods and be 
gone. I was told that his father also was Protestant, but out 
of fear went to Church ; which yet did not keep him from 
being persecuted, as not being cordiall. 

u I was told that about five or six myles from Liege there 
is a large village the most of the inhabitants of which are 
Protestants. 

"On June 12 1 went from Liege to Spaa, which is about 
six or seven hours. The way for some myles beyond 
Liege is very hillie, but afterwards it is prittie pleasant, 
through grounds part heathie, part cornclad, but within view, 
and at no great distance, of hills cloathed with wood. When 
you come near to the Spaa, you have for a long way a 
descent from the tops of high hills, which goe in a range 
almost round the town, but pleasant because of the woods 
that cover them. It is true there are in many places but 
short bushes of oak, yet often they are intermixed with 
trees, which make the place very convenient for retiring. 
There are four wells ; the one is in the middle of the town, 
of which all almost drink. Another is about a myle and a 
halfe out of the town hard by a wood. The other two are 
about the same distance from the town on the other side, in 
the midst of a wood, a little way one from the other. 

" There is a pleasant garden of the Capuciners, where 
drinkers of the waters generallie walk, and from thence, 
about ten o'clock, such as please goe to prayers in the Capu- 
ciners church hard by ; and from thence to dinner which is 
ordinarlie ready about eleven o'clock. In the afternoon they 
generallie walk till six, at which time they supp ; and after 
supper walk an hour or two, and so to bed ; rising about four 
o'clock. There is a meadow at the end of the town, where 
generallie the most of the companie meet and converse ; and 
such as please dance or otherwise divert themselves. The 
ordinarie custom is to take chambers by the night or week, 



VII.] JOURNAL. 121 

which you may have for six, nine, twelve, eighteen, styvers or 
more a night, according to the goodnesse of them. The 
people of the house furnish you fire and other things for 
dressing your meat. But many gentlemen go to an ordinarie 
at twelve to dinner. The best in the town is at the sign of 
the Spinet, where I staid, and paid for my chambers and 
dyet twice a day a rix dollar a day. I mett here with a very 
civill gentleman, who was pentionarie of Tournay ; who, 
though under the French, yet was no lover of them. There 
was here a fashionable gentleman, who could discourse well 
almost of everything ; who was supposed to be a spye for 
the French king, observing the sentiments of the various 
companies that came to that place. The best chambers are 
in a great house at the sign of the Pomelet, where persons 
of greater and lower quality are lodged, and with great 
convenience. It is but a small dorp Spaa, and lyes at the 
very foot of high hills. 

" On the 16 June I came from thence to Aiken, in the 
companie of four young merchants of Amsterdam. It is 
about seven hours betwixt the two places. We baited at 
Limburgh, where, as also in many other places, you have the 
sad instances of French crueltie ; for in this towm there are 
very few houses left standing ; the fortifications are demo- 
lished, and a castle that hath been a very strong and fair 
one quite ruined. This town stands upon a very high hill, 
and a river runs below it in the valley. The way is pleasant 
from Spaa to Aiken, though in some places uneasie for 
waggons. 

" When I was at Aiken I fell to be in the house with a 
gentleman and his lady who were both Catholicks, but great 
enemies to the Clergie, especiallie the regulars ; which made 
me take occasion to ask the Lady how it came then that she 
confessed all that she knew to such persons. She told me 
plainly that she did not confesse all ; and speaking of their 
lasciviousnesse she told me, that before she was married, 
when she came to confesse, they would have askt her ques- 
tions about things that she never knew before nor thought 



122 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap 

of; they were about lust. The gentleman told me, and she 
too, that the mischiefs of their unmarried life were so great, 
that it were a thousand times better they did marrie, and that 
he did hope in a little time to see a reformation in that 
matter. We came to discourse of nunns, many of whom are 
young gentlewomen of good qualitie. He told me that 
many of them were forced by their parents to take that 
course of life, because they were not able to give them a 
portion suited to their qualitie ; and that therefore the con- 
sequences could not but be sad, and the lewdnesse of Abba- 
cies great; of which he told me two stories from his own 
knowledge. 

" One was of a gentleman, an officer in the souldierie under 
the Spanish king, who was in suit of a young Lady who had 
a kindnesse for him : but not having the consent of her 
parents could not marrie him, but was forced by them to 
enter a nunnerie, which made the gentleman think upon mar- 
rieing another, which accordingly he did. But his wife dying, 
and he coming afterwards into that place where his former 
mistrisse was, old love began to revive, and it was aggried 
that he should come privatlie to her chamber, where he was 
hidd and entertained by her a fourthnight. But being at 
last discovered he was taken, and to his own and others' 
surprise he was sentenced to die ; the execution of which 
sentence the gentleman told me that he himselfe delayed 
for a small time (his office it seems putting him in a capa- 
citie to doe it), hopeing that the Marquisse de Grana, then 
governour of the Spanish Netherlands, would have sent a 
remission. But he was inexorable in that matter, and so the 
gentleman was executed, but nothing done to the gentle- 
woman. He told me also that the young Ladies in their 
Abbacies have conveniences in their chambers, where they 
can keep a person undiscovered, and that they keep often 
good confections in their rooms for entertaining one another, 
or others where they can have them, and are so inclined. 
But these are religious persons not of the strictest order, but 
who have a libertie to converse in the world, and some of ym 



VII.] JOURNAL. 123 

once in the year the freedom to goe out of their Abbacies for 

six weeks together amongst their friends. 

***** 

"On Jane 19 I went from Aiken to Juliers, which is 
about five hours. This for the most part is indeed a 
pleasant journey, for Tulicher land as it is called by the 
inhabitants, is for the most a plain countrey, mightie fruitfull 
of grain. The citie of Juliers is not very great, but well 
fortified. The D. of Newburgh, to whom this country 
belongs, hath here a house for his residence, which we 
could not see. There are about six hundereth men in the town 
in garrison. I could not but smile to see in the evening 
near two hundereth cows comeing into the town, and every 
one of them of themselves parting to the severall streets 
and houses to which they did belong. Here is very poor 
accommodation for strangers. 

" On June 20 I went for Cullen,* and past through a 
pleasant wood near nine miles long. 

" Cullen lyes in a pleasant plain on the Khyn, in way of 
a halfe moon. It is a large Citie, hath a good magazin and 
some of the antient Roman bows and pikes. Here I saw 
severall poor Hungarians who come to this place everie seven 
years to doe their devotions in the behalfe of their Countrey, 
which otherwise they superstitiouslie believe would be 
plagued with famine. They are maintained at the charge of 
the citie during their stay which is not long, and are once or 
twice served by the Burgomasters who attend them at table. 
Here is a church of the reformed, about two myles out of 
town. The congregation is prettie numerous. 

" There is no other but a floating-bridge upon the Ehyne 
here, which runns with a great stream. 

" On the 22 of June I saw Dusseldorp, and therin the 
Prince of Newburgh and his Princesse, the Emperor's sister. 
They had been some myles out of town at a procession, and 
were attended with four or five coaches with six horses and 
a small guard of horse. This town is pleasantlie situated 

* Cologne. 



124 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

upon the Rhyn, and the prince hath here a large palace ; 
the place is fortified. I went this day an hour further 
than Dusseldorp on the other side of the Ehyne, to a 
countrey place where we were but soberlie accomodated; 
we had travailed about nine hours this day. 

" On the 23 I went towards Wesel, crossing the Ehyne 
to see it. It is a fine town and pleasantlie situated and 
fortified, and is under the Duke of Brandenburgh. Before 
w 7 e came to it we passed through Khynberg, stronglie forti- 
fied and garrisoned by the Bishop of Colen. 

" From Wesell we went the same night to Marianborne, a 
countrey place, where there are two or three harboroughs ; in 
one of which we were very well entertained. Before we came 
to it we passed through a town called, as I remember, Sant ; 
prettie pleasant, and well built in some parts of it. This 
day we travailed about eleven hours. 

" On 24 June I went towards Cleve, which is most plea- 
santlie situated, part upon a hill and part in the valley. 
The Duke of Brandenburgh hath a fair palace on the outer 
side of it, upon a hill from which there is one of the plea- 
santest prospects of a fine country, with many steeples for 
several myles, that ever I saw. There seems to be here not 
a few people of good fashion. I here met with a gentleman 
at dinner in our ordinarie, the Hoff Van Hollant, who told 
me that he had severall times dined with the Earl Argyle 
and another gentleman and his son, in a private house in 
that town. He said that they lived very devoutlie, haveing 
a minister with them that performed worship punctuallie 
twice a day; and that they checked Lord Gray for his 
extravagancies. 

" Before I came to Cleve, about a myle beyond it, there is 
a pleasant place called Bergendale, where the late Maurice 
of Nassaw lived sometimes, and where he died. The house 
is but ordinarie but there is a prettie park stored with deir. 
Here also I saw severall of the Boman urns of various shapes, 
with some other antiquities ; as the images of Jupiter, Juno, 
Minerva, &c. in stone, with Latin inscriptions; most of the 



VII.] JOURNAL, 125 

urns were found by the above-mentioned Sant. On this side 
of Cleve there is a place called the Deer garden, where you 
have four pleasant fountains ; and upon the top of the hill 
all cloathed with wood you have a pleasant prospect of 
severall fine walks through the wood. From Cleve I came 
to Nimevegen, which is five hours. This is a good town, and 
stands upon a riseing hill, declining towards a branch of the 
Ehyne called the Waal, which makes it very pleasant. This 
day I travailed eight hours. 

" On the 25 June I took boat from Nimevegen to .Rot- 
terdam, but came no farther by the ship than Grorcutn 
because of the wind. In my way I saw Tiell, Bommell, and 
Lyvenstein, the last whereof stands upon a point of land 
betwixt the Maes and the Waal where they meet, and is a 
small fortification. 

" I had in the boat, besides others, a Lieut. Coll. in the 
Dutch service, who gave me an account how the late D. of 
Bavaria came to be so much on the French side, which was 
thus. His Dutchesse was a french lady, and had been mis- 
tresse to the King of France before he was married; for whom 
he had such love that he intended to marrie her, but was 
diverted from it by some of his courtiers, who procured a 
marriage for her with the said Duke ; by whom haveing 
besides other children had a daughter, when she came to be 
marriageable, she resolved that what herselfe had been dis- 
appointed of her daughter should be honoured with, to witt 
being Queen of France. In order to which, when the King 
of France was engadged in his late warrs with the Emperour, 
she caused propose a match betwixt her daughter and the 
Dauphin, promiseing to engadge the Duke in the French 
interests if this match were aggried to, which accordinglie 
was done. 

" On the 26 June I came to Kotterdam, where I staid 
privatlie without seing anybody but those of my cusin's 
familie. 

" I forgott, when writeing what was remarkable at Spaa, 



126 WILLIAM CAJRSTABES. [Chap. 

to sett down the inscription that is upon that fountain that 
is in the town ; which is this : — 

' Obstvuctum reserat durum terit humida siccat, 
Debile fortificat, si tamen arte bibis.' 

" It is not permitted to women to enter into the Cloisters 
of the Capucins or their gardens ; only here in Spaa it is 
permitted for the convenience of strangers, that all persons 
may walk in their garden. 

" On July 3 I went from Eotterdam to the Hague, and 
came back again at night, haveing only walkt about the 
town without seing any acquaintance. 

" On July 6 I went to the Hague again, where I staid 
one night without goeing to visit any of my acquaintance. 
I had this day one of the oddest encounters with one that 
was in the habit of a very fashionable gentlewoman, that 
ever I had in my life. It so fell out that I satt by her 
in the boat, without speaking anything but one or two sen- 
tences. When we came to pay I had no small money, 
and the skipper not being able to change presently the 
piece I gave him, she tooke the opportunitie of telling me 
with very much seeming civilitie, that she could serve me 
with small money ; which accordinglie she did, paying the 
skipper my fraught. I kindly thanked her, and putt her 
to the trouble of changeing my money, which she did, only 
I wanted some styvers, which made me tell them that she 
should pay my fraught from Delpht to the Hague, and so 
we should be quitts. When we came to the end of Delpht 
the Hague's scuyt was gone, so that being to stay halfe an 
hour, and she pretending to be faint, and that some quarm 
came over her stomach, we went to one of those houses 
where it is ordinarie for people to stay and drink a glasse of 
beer or wine, or eat any litle thing that is readie, which 
ordinarilie is only eels, till the scuyt be readie to goe. I 
haveing from somewhat of her discourse been suspicious of 
her being a slight person, would goe into no room with her, 
but staid in the outer entrie where any person came that 



VII.] EXPENSES. 127 

pleased. At last, finding more clearlie what she was, and 
being resolved to be ridd of her, I pretended I had some 
businesse in town. She told me very brisklie she would goe 
with me, and w T ent to the door before me, which made me 
stay in the house ; but she, finding that I did not follow, 
came back again. Then I told her that I must be gone. 
She still persisted in offering me her company ; but I have- 
ing answered that I was not for such company, I was glad 
to get away with all the hast I could, she still crying she 
would goe with me. But I was not a little pleased that she 
was left behind, tho' I had not the rest of my change from 
her. 

" I this day dined at an ordinary with some gentlemen, 
some of whom carried themselves very indiscreetlie, en- 
deavouring to bring me to speake of publick affairs in 
England; but they came short of their design, I not con- 
cerning myself in their discourse." 

With this the journal ends. It is accompanied w 7 ith a 
careful list of the writer's receipts and expenses, from which 
I make a few extracts that illustrate the rates of charges for 
travelling, living, &c, in those days.* 

On the 6th of April he bought a " perriwig," in London, 
which cost him £1 10s., and on the 9th of April a silver 
picktooth case for 3s. Next day he gave a dinner " to some 
friends upon an extraordinary occasion " for the modest 
reckoning of 7s. 2d. He travelled from London by Graves- 
end, Kochester, and Canterbury ; and the fare to Gravesend 
for himself and a friend, coach to Rochester, dinner there, 
and coach to Canterbury, came altogether to 10s. 2d. Post- 
horses from Canterbury to Dover cost 8s., and the fare from 
Dover to Newport, with fees to porters and sailors and 
'• money to the searchers," 10s. " For supper and dinner 
next day and lodging that night I landed, having also paid 
for a poor Englishwoman that came from England with us, 
and given drink money to the maid, 3 gilders 6 stivers." 

t For a catalogue of Carstares' library, of the same date, see Appendix. 



128 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 

He lodged for three nights at Dort, and paid, for lodging, 
diet, and " extraordinaries," 9 gilders 3 stivers, the charge 
for dinner at the ordinary having been 30 stivers, and for 
supper 24 stivers. Things appear to have been cheaper 
at Maestricht, where for the same time he paid 5 gilders 

7 stivers. He took fourteen baths at Aachen at a charge, for 
the set, of 4 gilders 4 stivers. "For beer at the several 
times of my bathing, 12 stivers." For a " car " from Aachen 
to Cologne, " being fourteen hours, 2 gilders 8 stivers." A 
pair of stockings at Liege cost 4 gilders 10 stivers. A night's 
lodging and " diet " at Eotterdam were had for 1 gilder 

8 stivers. On another occasion a night's lodging there, with 
supper and breakfast, came to 2 gilders 8 stivers. " I reckon 
not," he says, " what was given on several occasions to the 
poor." " A pistole," he adds, "gives but 9 gilders in Flanders, 
and 17s. upon the road in England, though I paid to the 
goldsmith for it 17s. Gd" His receipts are noted thus : — 

" Eeceived April 11 by bill at Aiken from my 

cousin James Dimlop £61 

Eeceived at Dort before I went to Aiken .100 

Eeceived at Eotterdam 35 7 

I brought from London with me . . . . 10 15 6 

Eeceived August 24/85 of Mr. Parsons, by bill 335 8 " 



vin.] 129 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Cleve — Death of Father and Mother — Leyden — Chaplain to "William of 

Orange. 

The next three years of Carstares' life were outwardly un- 
eventful, his residence in Holland being disturbed by no 
persecution, and marked by no visible engagement in poli- 
tical or ecclesiastical adventure or infrigue. He took a house 
at Cleve, to which he brought his wife before the end of 
August, 1685, and remained there for more than a year. 

He appears to have had enough of money to provide com- 
fortably for himself and his household, but the source of his 
income is not indicated in any of his extant letters and 
papers. 

Mrs. Dunlop's circumstances seem to have been somewhat 
straitened duriug her husband's prolonged absence in Caro- 
lina ; and again and again her brother urges her to consider 
his purse her own. " Take, dear sister, for your own use," 
he writes, " what you shall need, and the more freedom you 
use with me I take it the more kindly. I need say no more 
as to this, only you will do me a very great injury if you shall 
not take as freely of mine as you would do of your own." 

He never had any children. 

Sad news from home reached him immediately after he 
had finished his tour in Holland. He writes to his sisters, 
under cover to Mrs. Dunlop, on the 28th of July : — 

" My dearest Sisters, — I know not what to write to yon, and 
yet I cannot be silent, though I am not much in a capacity to say 
anything suited to your condition — only I bear a large share with 
you in your affliction, and indeed such a share as bows me down — 
there being many things in this heavy stroke of the removal of my 

K 



130 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Cha P> 

dearest dearest mother, that make it peculiarly afflicting to me. 
The Lord sanctify it to us, and help to carry aright under it. My 
heart bleeds for my dear father. His God be his support. I must 
confess it was surprising to me to hear of this providence, having 
suspected no such news, for there came none of all the letters my 
wife hath wrote to me since parting safe to hand, till the 7th of this 
month, and then her tenderness of me made her loath to write such 
heavy tidings, of which I had no account till yesterday — which I 
must confess are such as are exceeding heavy. It would be some 
satisfaction to me to hear that I had any place in her remembrance, 
and if she left any commands for me, in obeying of which I might 
in some measure make up those defects of duty to so very kind a 
mother, when alive, which I have been guilty of; but one thing 
she hath often desired of me, that I should be kind to you all, if God 
did take her away ; which if I know how to perform I shall not be 
defective in. If it were any way convenient I would come over 
and pay my duty to my afflicted father ; but providence seems to 
stop that door; but if his body could bear it to be transported 
hither, there is a place up the country,* in the dominion of the 
Duke of Brandenburg, to which we can go by water till we come 
within fifteen miles of it, and then we can have a coach. I intend 
to go there with my wife, and I cannot tell you what a satisfaction 
it would be to us to have his and your company. Pray speak to 
him of it, for I am in no capacity to give him at present the 
trouble of a line, being in some perplexity and confusion ; but 
pray give my duty to him, and rest all of you assured that I shall 
never be forgetful of my very dear mother's desire to me about you, 
and that you shall find me, I hope, while I breathe, according to my 
capacity, my dear sisters, your faithful and very affectionate, though 
at present very much afflicted brother, W. C. 

" I know I need not desire you to be very careful of your worthy 
father. The Lord be with you. This is wrote in much confusion, 
and I do not know whether it will come to hand or not. I have 
been here some weeks, but have not made one visit." 

This was written from Kotterdam, where he awaited his 
wife's arrival, and where he had the society of his brother 
Alexander and his cousin James Dunlop (brother of Sarah's 
husband), who were now successful merchants in that city. 
We have no record of his life at Cleve. He intended to make 

* Cleve. 



VIIL] SELF-IMPROVEMENT. 131 

his residence there a time of quiet mental improvement, if 
we may judge from the following Rule, which he drew up, 
and which is dated "Cleve, Jan. 5, 1686:"* 

" A digested method of spending of time contributing 
much to the redeeming and right improving of it, I desire 
(tho' without taking any vow upon me in reference to what 
is afterwards set down about my course of study, but leaving 
to myself a warranted liberty to act as in discretion shall be 
fit) for three months to endeavour to take the following 
course in study. 

"I would not willingly be diverted in the morning by 
company, bat would reserve that time for myself. Besides 
time spent in reading of Scripture and duties of God's wor- 
ship, I would spend, at least, an hour in acquiring the French 
language, being, because of its universality, so very neces- 
sary for converse. I would read a particular portion, every 
day, of my compends of Philosophy and Theology. I would 
spend two hours a day upon what I design for a just viudica- 
tion of myself, principles, and friends, from the aspersions 
cast upon them in the narrative of the plot printed in Eng- 
land. I would be careful of giving offence in the use of 
recreations. I would endeavour to moderate my passions 
upon all occasions. I would guard against evil speaking, 
being so very unbecoming a Christian. I would endeavour to 
commit myself unto God in well doing without giving way 
to sinful anxiety upon the one hand, or indiscreet managing 
of my affairs on the other. I would endeavour to acknow- 
ledge God in providences of one kind and another. I would 
endeavour to be meek and lowly, and yet labour in a prudent 
way to keep up the respect and authority of my ministerial 
station, and so much the more that it is under such contempt 
both with good and bad." 

Carstares' kind design of bringing his father away from 
the saddened home in Edinburgh, and the oppressed life of 
Scotland, to the peace and freedom that he had found on the 
banks of the Ehine, was not to be accomplished. While his 

* Caldwell Papers, vol. i. p. 168. 

K 2 



132 • WILLIAM CARSTARJES. [Chap. 

son was lying in prison in November 1684, and when the 
Privy Council were dealing with the Presbyterians in a spirit 
of more than usual harshness, John Carstares had made up 
his mind to quit Scotland, and had applied to the Secretary 
of State for a passport. " Seeing," he wrote, " as it would 
seem, it is resolved that all Presbyterian nonconform minis- 
ters shall be either perpetually imprisoned or exiled his 
Majesty's dominions, I beseech your Lordship to grant me 
your Lordship's pass to go out of my native country (where 
I thought I would have been permitted to die, being an aged 
man . . . ) unclogged with any gravaminous condition, as 
of not exercising my ministry, &c." * But now heavier sorrow 
and infirmity had bowed him down, and he was in no con- 
dition to leave home and join William in the pleasant Khine- 
land, where Cleve looked, from its gentle slopes, across the 
ancient river. The day of his own departure was drawing- 
near, and he was never to see his son's face again. Not the 
least among the griefs, which saddened his last days, was the 
thought of the exiled son, and of the daughter whom he 
feared he was about to lose — for Sarah had resolved to go 
out to her husband in Carolina, much to the distress of her 
family. William writes to her in November, while she was 
entertaining this project : " Thou art very, very dear to me, 
and thy afflicted condition goes very near to me. I cannot 
without heaviness think upon thee and thine. God himself 
be your comforter, and clear your way before you — helping 
you to quiet submission to his holy will. The Lord that 
hath fed you all your life long until now, — the angel which 
hath kept you from many evils that you might have been 
trysted with, even the God before whom our dear father doth, 
and our now glorified mother (upon whom I cannot think, or 
speak, with dry eyes) did walk — bless yourself, husband, and 
the lads. ... It was judged convenient for preventing of 
after trouble that upon my coming here I should apply 
myself to some of the government, shewing that I came 
out of Britain without being concerned in late businesses 
* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 39. 



VIII.] JOHN CARSTARES DYING. 133 

there, which I did. And in answer to the underwritten 
paper,* which you may shew your father, I have had a return 
from the Duke of Brandenburg/]" under his hand and seal, 
giving all protection and encouragement within his lands, 
not only to me, but to all others coming for conscience' sake 
out of Britain, excepting only those who have been concerned 
in the late insurrections some months ago, whom he says 
he cannot but upon the King of England's desire, cause to 
remove out of his territories." 

On the morning of the 5th of February, 1686, John Carstares 
died, in his lodging in Edinburgh. His daughters were beside 
him, and he gave them all his blessing, adding, as he did so, 
" Yea, and they shall be blessed." He called Sarah specially to 
him, and gave her a solemn charge, which he enjoined her to 
convey both to her husband and her eldest brother, that they 
should never again meddle with any work but what properly 
belonged to them, as ministers of the gospel. Some one asked 
him what he thought now of the times and the state of the 
nation. " If I be not far mistaken of the words and ways of 
God," he answered, " the heart of God is not toward these 
men. Notwithstanding all their successes and prevailings of 
a long time against the people and work of God, I am per- 
suaded tandem bona causa triumpliabit" "I leave," he said, 
" my children and family to God, who gave them, and who 

* " A copy of the paper given in by me to the government here : Cuin 
Gulielmus Carstares hue ex Britannia, sedem hie per aliquod tempus 
figendi, ergovenerit, sui esse duxit officii illustre hujus ducatus Eegimen 
certius facere, se ob nulla crimina inde discessisse ; sed tantum ut libera, 
in exteris regionibus, fraeretur conscientia, cum sese omnibus quoad eccle- 
siastica in Britannia institutis conformare non possit ; humillime igitur 
petit ut serenissimi Electoris protectione fruatur, et hisce in regionibus 
bona cum Keginiinis venia, secure degat, Deoque suo libere inserviat." 

f The Duchy of Cleve fell to the Duke of Brandenburg in 1666 : " a 
naturally opulent country, of fertile meadows, shipping capabilities, metalli- 
ferous hills ; and at this time, in consequence of the Dutch-Spanish War, 
and the multitude of Protestant refugees, it was getting filled with in- 
genious industries." Carlyle's 'Friedrich,' vol. i. pp. 303, 347. The present 
Duke was Friedrich Wilhelm, " the great Elector," the Prince of Orange's 
uncle by marriage, "a pious God-fearing man rather, staunch to his 
Protestantism and his Bible." Ibid. p. 352. 



134 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

will be tlieir portion.* If it were possible that Christ and his 
interests could ruin, I had much rather ruin and fall with 
him, than stand with any, or all, the powers in the world ; 
but as I am persuaded those cannot perish, so am I confident 
in the Lord they shall revive in all the churches of Christ." 
Among his last words were, " I am dying, and dying in the 
Lord, and now I have nothing to do but to die."t 

On the 24th of February, Carstares writes to his sisters : " I 
have had the heavy tidings of the removal of my dearest and 
very worthy father, whose death hath many aggravating con- 
siderations as to me, beyond what it hath to any of you. 
for the blessing of so sad a stroke ! It hath a loud language, 
God himself help to know and to conform to it. Our loss is 
such as can be made up in none but God. let us seek to 
have this great want supplied there ! Let us be on our guard 
against distrusting despondence upon the one hand, and 
unconcernedness on the other. The holy God be submitted 
to and not quarrelled with, and yet his rods suitably regarded. 
The taking away of our very dear and tender-hearted and 
concerned parents carries on it very visible marks of great 
love on God's part to them, whom in tender care he would 
not have to see the evils that seem to be at hand, but would 
house them before the storm should blow ; but ! the dis- 
pensation looks dark as to us : — Lord grant that we may walk 
humbly with him. Now, dear sisters, let me once again 
desire you to rest assured that you shall find me a faithful 
affectionate and concerned brother. The want of your 
parents, and of such parents, cannot be made up by me, but 
what shall be in my power for your comfort and help shall 
not be wanting. I would have you ordering your affairs so 
as we may be together as soon as is possible. My poor wife 
is equally concerned with me in you all and most affection- 
ately remembers you." In a paragraph specially addressed 
to Sarah he says : ■' Pray leave behind thee (tho' thy going 
is heavy to me, but alas ! thy great ties are loosed) one of 

* For John Carstares' Will, see Appendix, 
t Ferric, p. 46. ' Aualecta,' vol. iii. pp. 52-3. 



VIII.] LEYDEN. 135 

thy babies, and Johnie if thou please, that I may shew to 
him the kindness I owe to thee, and the savoury memory of 
him whose name he bears." 

In a subsequent letter (April 10), he says : " I thank you 
heartily for Johnie. He shall be as my own. I take it very 
kindly also you sent me those things, which I shall prize much 
as remembrances of my dear and tender-hearted parents. 
I would have my sisters with me so soon as they can 
come. We shall very well agree how to live together ; and 
I would have all my dear father's books brought to Edin- 
burgh, for it is like I may send for them shortly. I am not 
yet fully determined where to take up my settled abode for 
the rest of the summer and the following winter, if the Lord 
shall spare so long, but shall quickly, I hope, come to a 
resolution. My wife will go to EDgland, I think, in a little 
time, but make as short stay as may be." 

Johnie, after all, was not sent to his uncle, and Mrs. Dun- 
lop, instead of emigrating to Carolina, joined with her sisters 
in taking a house (in Edinburgh, I conclude), where they 
lived together until the Revolution. 

Before the beginning of the winter of 1686-7 Carstares 
left Cleve, and took up his abode at Leyden. There were 
many advantages in this change. At Leyden he was near 
his former friends, and the large Scotch colony, in Utrecht. 
His old tutor, Mr. Sinclair, who had been for several years 
an exile, was close at hand in the Scots' church at Delft.* 
Rotterdam — the home of his brother and his cousin, and a 
port in constant communication with Britain — was only seven- 
teen miles distant. But no doubt the chief attraction of 
Leyden was its immediate vicinity to the Hague and the 
Court of the Prince of Orange. Carstares' discreet and 
courageous silence under his torture, when a few words 
would have secured his own release, and made revelations 
disastrous to the Prince, had greatly enhanced the esteem 
and confidence which William had long entertained for him. 
He was now admitted to his most confidential counsels, and 
. * Steven, p. 295. 



136 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

he became also the intimate friend of Bentinck. On Car- 
stares' judgment of characters and circumstances William 
felt he could rely, no less than on his well-tried silence and 
discretion. In consulting him, he ran none of the risks which 
he incurred from Burnet's talkative officiousness and self- 
sufficiency ; and when Burnet, at the peremptory desire of 
King James,* was forbidden to see the Prince and Princess, 
Carstares was drawn into still closer relations with William 
— relations which gained an official sanction from his ap- 
pointment as one of the Prince's chaplains. Of all this, 
however, we learn nothing, or next to nothing, from his 
letters to his sisters, which are the only ones extant of this 
period. They are occupied with family affairs, or such per- 
sonal details as lie apart from any political connection. He 
does not even announce the appointment which he received 
early in 1688 to be second minister of the Scots' church in 
Leyden, — a charge founded by the Prince solely on his 
chaplain's t account, and endowed as a kind of provision for 
him. The letters are full of his brotherly interest in his 
family at home, and especially in Sarah, who evidently was 
his favourite sister. " You are dear to me," he writes to her, 
" and shall find that you are so, if Providence shall capacitate 
me to testify it. My wife hath sent each of your babies a 
ducaton to buy them gloves, and each of you two, as a small 
token of her great respect. You must not take this ill, for 
it is much the fashion in England to send their friends, upon 
occasions, some such little small things as remembrances 
of them." 

" If there shall be an Act of Indemnity," he writes in 
September 1687, " I intend, if the Lord will, to be with you 
for some months ; but I have little inclination to be in the 
reverence of some men, tho' I have a strong inclination to 
see you all." 

He had vowed never to return to Scotland until he should 
see " things there go in another channel." Had the turn 
of the tide begun then ? Had a Stuart learned wisdom 
* Burnet, vol. iii. p. 173. f Steven, p. 312. 



VIII.] TEE COMING CRISIS. 137 

and charity, and forsworn bigotry and despotism ? How 
came Acts of Indemnity to be expected from the master 
of Claverhouse, and the patron of Jeffreys? A glance at 
the history of the unquiet years, which had passed since 
Carstares got out of prison, will throw some light on these 
points, and will prepare us for the great crisis, now fast 
approaching, which was to bestow on the Dutch Stadtholder 
the sceptre wrenched from the mean and incapable hand of 
James, to restore the exiles of liberty and religion to their 
native soil, and to regenerate the political life of Britain. 



138 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Infatuated policy of James in England — Party of the Prince of Orange 
— Affairs of Scotland — James Steuart, Carstares, and Fagel — The Inva- 



" Never king mounted the throne of England," says the 
judicial Hume,* " with greater advantages than James, nay 
possessed greater facility, if that were any advantage, of ren- 
dering himself and his posterity absolute ; but all these for- 
tunate circumstances tended only, by his ow r n misconduct, to 
bring more sudden ruin upon him. The nation seemed 
disposed of themselves to resign their liberties, had he not, 
at the same time, made an attempt upon their religion ; and 
he might even have succeeded in surmounting at once their 
liberties and their religion, had he conducted his schemes 
with common prudence and discretion." He possessed a 
large revenue independent of parliamentary control, and a 
standing army, strong and disciplined, of which he was the 
absolute master. The old malcontents and champions of 
liberty, in the days of his father and brother, were no more, 
and no others seemed prepared to follow in their steps. The 
efforts made, early in his reign, by Argyll and Monmouth, to 
overturn his government in Scotland and England, came to 
an ignominious end in both kingdoms. When the King 
opened his English Parliament in November 1685, he stood 
before his peers and commoners, prosperous, powerful, and 
confident. But the blind lust of arbitrary power, and the 
bitter zeal of superstitious fanaticism which infected his hard 
heart and narrow intelligence, early betrayed themselves, 
and dissipated whatever hopes his subjects had formed of a 
free and peaceful reign. 

* Hume (chap. Ixx.), vol. viii. p. 230. 



IX.] POLICY OF JAMES VII. 139 

His leading idea was soon perceived, and it was to rule his 
kingdoms, independent of the law and of Parliament, and in 
the interests of the Church of Eome. The sturdy spirit of 
English Protestantism was not long of being roused, and 
expressed its alarm through the warning voice of the houses 
of Lords and Commons. Even the slavish Parliament of 
Scotland, which, after the King's accession, had solemnly 
expressed its " abhorrence of all principles which are contrary 
or derogatory to the King's sacred, supreme, absolute power 
and authority,"* shrank from the proposal to grant full tole- 
ration to the King's co-religionists. Both Parliaments were 
speedily prorogued, and James essayed to govern alone and 
absolute. The infatuated and suicidal course of his policy in 
England is too well known to need recapitulation. The 
standing army, the assertion of the " dispensing power," the 
official employment of Eoman Catholics, the High Commis- 
sion, the " regulating " of the charters, the embassy to Koine, 
the illegal remission of tests and penal laws, the dismissal 
of Rochester and Clarendon, the appointment of Tyrconnel 
in Ireland, were all grievances, lesser or greater, which 
not only alarmed and irritated the nation, but seemed to 
mark a reckless and unresting progress away from Protes- 
tantism and liberty, towards Popery and tyranny, the end 
whereof none liked to forecast. At length things began 
to ripen and draw together to the consummation. The King 
had practically abolished Parliament ; he had overstepped 
the sacred precincts of the law, and he thought he might 
with impunity venture to interfere with the rights of the 
Church and the Universities. Here, however, he reached the 
limits of forbearance. The attempt to extort from the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge a degree for a Benedictine monk forced 
that great, learned, and conservative corporation, whose 
loyalty was unquestioned, to a simple choice between the 
orders of the King and the laws of the land.t The attempt to 

* Dakymple, vol. i. p. 75. 

f " I could not tell what to do — decline his Majesty's letter or his laws." 
Letter from Br, PeacheH (Yice-Chancellor) to S. Pepys. Pepys' Corre- 
spondence. 



140 WILLIAM 0AH8TABES. [Chap. 

foist a Roman Catholic president upon Magdalen College, 
Oxford, drove that university, whose attachment to the 
throne was proverbial, to the same fatal dilemma. In either 
case, constitutional principle triumphed over courtly tradition 
and feudal sentiment ; and the triumph was the beginning of 
the end for the blind and bigoted monarch. 

The loyalty of the Church was shaken to its foundations 
by the assault on the universities ; and the trial of the seven 
bishops only completed the alienation of the clergy from the 
King, which that assault had first engendered. 

When Lord Dartmouth came to James to give his report 
of Monmouth's execution, he said, " You have got rid of one 
enemy, but a more dangerous one remains behind."* When 
Argyll was carried prisoner into Renfrew, at the close of his 
disastrous expedition, he said to Thomas Crawford of Craw- 
fordsburn, " Thomas, it hath pleased Providence to frown on 
my attempt, but remember, I tell you, ere long One shall 
take up this quarrel, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry, 
who will not miscarry in his undertaking." f In neither case 
was the reference obscure. Had James possessed even slight 
political sagacity, he would have understood that the thoughts 
of every British subject, who dreaded his arbitrary power and 
his popish superstitions and intrigues, must naturally turn to 
William of Orange. 

That wise and ambitious prince was, through his marriage 
to the heiress of the throne, bound to take a watchful con- 
cern in the affairs of England; he was the sworn foe of 
that great potentate, the enemy of civil freedom and of the 
reformed faith, to whom Charles and James had meanly 
truckled ; he was the recognised head of the Protestant in- 
terest in Europe. Long ere James had ascended the throne 
the Scottish exiles, and sufferers for conscience' sake, had 
hoped in his son-in-law, as the future champion of their 
rights ; and now the mind of England, also, turned to him as 
the only possible deliverer from evils that were becoming in- 

* Dalrymple, part i. book ii. p. 69. 
f Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 209. 



IX.] POLICY OF WILLIAM. 141 

supportable. No doubt William had foreseen that it would 
thus turn to him. He had done nothing, openly, to form a 
party in England, or to promote opposition to the King ; but 
indications are not wanting that his influence had been at 
work, in more than one of the disaffected movements of the 
time. The expedition of Monmouth was organised with his 
connivance. Carstares, acting for the Prince, paid Wishart, 
the master of the vessel in which Argyll sailed from Holland 
(" of whose honesty and willingness to serve his Highness," he 
was fully assured.*) In either case we note the influence ; 
we perhaps cannot decide as to the motive ; though in the one, 
a rival was certain to be put out of the way ; and in the 
other, it was not improbable that the allegiance of a whole 
nation might be shaken by a successful insurrection. 

Now, however, in 1687, William began to lend himself 
more frankly, though still with caution, to English political 
intrigue. He had been anxious to maintain a dutiful friend- 
ship with his father-in-law as long as he could hope, through 
this friendship, to secure the alliance of England in his 
designs against France. When he saw that the King no 
longer represented the nation, or commanded the sympathies 
of his people, and that the support of England against the 
aggression of France could be gained without her King more 
easily than with him, he did not scruple to become the head 
of the secret and rapidly-spreading combination of parties 
hostile to James. 

The missions of William's envoys, Dykvelt and Zulestein, 
compacted the alliance between their master and the English 
opposition ; and by the time Zulestein returned to Holland, 
while the forms of decent friendship were still preserved be- 
tween King James and his son-in-law, the reigning monarch 
and the foreign prince were practically rivals for the same 
sovereignty. Although James seems to have had a dull 
perception of the truth, and might easily have divined the 
causes of his own unpopularity, he never swerved in his anti- 
Protestant crusade. Office after office was taken from 

* McCormick, p. 35. Afterwards an admiral of the English fleet. 



142 WILLIAM CAESTARES. [Chap. 

Churchmen to be bestowed, in virtue of the dispensing 
power, on Eoman Catholics. Step by step the Eomish eccle- 
siastics were advanced to greater liberty and honour. The 
King would listen to no counsel ; though there is no doubt 
his Rornan Catholic advisers, and even the Pope himself, 
suggested to him the necessity of minglirjg discretion with 
his zeal.* 

It was hard for any intelligent observer of James's charac- 
ter and policy to believe that he was, at heart, a lover of the 
rights of conscience and civil and religious liberty; and accord- 
ingly, his measures of toleration in England were regarded 
with general suspicion. The common conviction was that, 
under the flimsy cloak of an indulgence to the long harassed 
dissenters, he intended to introduce Popery with all the autho- 
rity and dignity which it had arrogated before the Informa- 
tion. Even the dissenters looked askance upon a freedom, 
conferred by a prince who had been the most rigorous oppressor 
of the Covenanters of Scotland, and who had congratulated 
Louis XIV. on his revocation of the Edict of Nantes.f The 
Church regarded his indulgences with a mixture of profes- 
sional jealousy and Protestant alarm. Statesmen, however 
they might approve, in theory, of equal religious freedom for 
every communion, could not but dread the practical results 
of the concession of the boon in the case of Roman Catholics, 
and disapprove of the royal prerogative being employed 
to force upon the nation measures, not only repugnant to 
public feeling and opinion, but absolutely contrary to law. 
The republication of the * English Indulgence ' in April, 
1688, and the remonstrance of the seven bishops, their trial 
and acquittal, and the sympathy which attended that ac- 
quittal, hastened on the crisis, and marked the last severances 
in the rupture between the nation and the King. The ill- 
omened birth of the Prince of Wales only quickened the 
universal sentiment of national distrust and dfead. Within 
three weeks of that event, and on the very day of the 

* Dalrymple, part. i. book iv. 

f Dalrymple. Appendix, part i. p. 177. 



IX.] AFFAIRS IN SCOTLAND. 143 

acquittal of the bishops, a formal invitation, signed by the 
seven chief conspirators against King James, was despatched 
to the Prince of Orange. 

Meanwhile, how had things gone in Scotland? They 
were at a dark enough pass at the time of James's accession. 
The extreme party of the Presbyterians, who now went by 
the name of the Society men or the Hill men, had drawn off 
farther than ever from all commerce with the indulged, or 
even with those moderate men, who were disposed to await in 
patience the issue of events. 

In October and November, 1681, they had published the 
1 Apologetical Declaration,' drawn up by their leader Ken- 
wick. It was a stern and threatening manifesto,* which, 
practically, declared a war of retaliation against all the 
minions and emissaries of the government, all abettors of 
the persecution, all informers, especially " viperous and ma- 
licious bishops and curates." " The ' Apologetic Declaration ' 
carried terror into many breasts. Several curates, afraid of 
their lives, abandoned their parishes. Magistrates and in- 
formers could not go out in the dark, scarcely in the day, 
for fear of being shot down by some unseen hand. The very 
soldiery required to be more on their guard. A keen marks- 
man, from behind a dyke, might empty a saddle and be 
off in a twinkling. But government had now a stronger 
pretext than ever to hunt these men down, as professed mur- 
derers, and they did not fail to take advantage of it. An 
oath solemnly abjuring the declaration was formed. Different 
officers were commissioned to proceed to different parts of 
the country, with a sufficient military force. The inha- 
bitants were to be brought before them, and if any one 
hesitated to take the abjuration oath, he was to be shot 
upon the spot. To make "matters still more sure, no one was 
to be allowed to pass from one part of the country to an- 
other without carrying with him a certificate of his loyalty, 
and this he could obtain only by taking the abjuration 
* See Wodiw, vol. iv. p. 168. 



144 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

oath."* Claverhouse scoured the country, quartering troops 
on recusant parishes, assisting those favourites, on whom 
government had bestowed forfeited estates, to secure pos- 
session; ferreting out, early in the week, and punishing, 
those parishioners marked " absent " at the previous Sunday's 
service; shooting such as would not take the oath.t The 
offer, on James's accession, of an indemnity to all persons 
below the rank of heritors, life-renters, or burgesses, who 
should take the oath of allegiance, was so clogged with con- 
ditions as to be, in effect, illusory ;J and the merciless action 
of the Parliament more than counterbalanced the limited 
concessions of the King. A series of Acts was passed, directed 
against the Presbyterians, and exceeding in severity all pre- 
vious legislation. These acts made it treason to acknowledge 
the Covenant ; treason to refuse evidence against attenders 
at conventicles ; treason, and a capital crime, to preach 
either in a house or in the fields, or to attend a conventicle 
out of doors. The insurrection of Argyll afforded only too 
fair an excuse for redoubled rigour in the application of these 
enactments, and for a harsher licence to the military op- 
pressors of the western regions, in which Argyll had hoped 
to find his chief support ; but where he discovered, to his 
ruin, that the heart and energy of the people were too 
thoroughly crushed to respond to his appeal. 

No effort has been spared, by the apologists of the govern- 
ment of James, to impart a constitutional and clement 
aspect to his Scotch administration, and to throw a dubious 
haze around the alleged sufferings of the Presbyterians. 
Probably, as in all cases where popular passion has been 
deeply stirred, the sufferings have been in some points ex- 
aggerated, and the story occasionally has been touched with 
imaginative or picturesque details. But, on the whole, there 
is no possibility of denying a vast mass of arbitrary cruelty 
and illegal oppression. 

* Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 236. f Burton, vol. vii. 545. 

t Fountainhall, p. 621. 



IX.] PRESBYTERIAN SUFFERINGS. 145 

The banishments to the Plantations, the enormous fines, the 
horrors of Dunnotter,* are proved historical facts. Without 
undue credulity, we may say the same of the great majority of 
Wodrow's cases of murder, torture, fining, and imprison- 
ment. It has been a fashion among Jacobite and Episcopal 
writers to decry the historian of the " Sufferings ;" but his 
narrative is in too many instances authenticated by external 
testimony to be thrown aside as legendary. Hume, who 
wrote his own account of the reigns of Charles and James 
within seventy years of the period, considered Wodrow a 
much better authority than Burnett The credulity and 
prejudice which Mr. Hill Burton lays to his charge, % although 
he testifies that " few works are more truthful than his 
History," were qualities inseparable from every Scotsman who, 
attempting to decipher and relate the history of his church 
and country between the years 1662 and 1688, should sit 
down to the task within thirty years of the Ee volution. § 

The battle of Wodrow's trustworthiness has been lately 
fought at two crucial points — the story of the " Christian 
Carrier," and that of the " Wigton Martyrs ;" and at each he 
has gained a decided triumph. The late Mr. W. E. Aytoun|| 
lent all the enthusiasm of the poet of the cavaliers, and all 
the skill of an accomplished lawyer, to the enterprise of 
proving the Christian carrier to be little else than a mythical 

* Where 167 men and women were crammed together into a vault, 
ankle deep in mire, and with but one window. Afterwards some of them 
were removed to another vault; where they could get a little fresh air 
only by lying down, in turns, beside a chink in the wall. Some trying to 
escape were caught, laid on their backs on a bench ; and matches tied 
between the fingers of both hands, were kept burning for three hours 
until the bones were calcined. Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 324. 

f Hume, vol. viii. p. 164. 

% Burton, vol. vii. p. 570, note. 

§ My own experience of Wodrow, as far as it goes, is in favour of his 
accuracy. In every important detail where I have been able to compare 
his statements with other, and original, authorities, I have found him 
right. Mr. Fox, I may remark, bears a similar testimony in his ' History 
of the Reign of James II.' 

|| Appendix to later editions of 'Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,' 

L 



146 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

personage; but he fails to shake the narrative of Wodrow, 
or to explain away the damning facts of the case, as ad- 
mitted by Claverhouse himself.* In the delirious pages of 
Mr. Mark Napierf every conceivable pretext for disbelieving 
the execution of the Wigton martyrs is paraded at length ; 
but the dispassionate and exhaustive investigation of the 
Eev. Dr. Stewart, of Glasserton,J has left no doubt, in any 
impartial mind, that the story as told by Wodrow is in all 
important particulars substantially correct. 

The persecution gradually concentrated itself upon the 
outlawed Society people. The great body of the Presby- 
terians was by this time effectually crushed. Very few of 
the ministers survived, in Scotland. The nonconforming 
gentry were either banished, forfeited, or forced into inactive 
submission by ruinous flues. The yeomen and peasantry 
were much reduced in numbers by slaughter, exile, and im- 
prisonment ; and those who remained were quite unable to 
contend longer against a ruthless military coercion. Thus, 
from very want of fuel, the fire dwindled, although there was 
no reason to believe the principles of persecution had been 
renounced by the King or government. It was, therefore, 
with a mixture of wonder and doubt, that the nation heard it 
alleged that the King proposed to grant an indulgence, and 
that he was in favour of the removal of the tests and penal 
laws. James was not adroit enough to do anything to dis- 
arm the shrewd suspicion of his designs. He openly an- 
nounced his wish to relieve hisKoman Catholic subjects from 
tests and penalties ; and finding that his Parliament would 
not help him in this, he did it by virtue of his royal prero- 
gative, but tried to render the act less generally offensive by 
extending his toleration to the Presbyterians also. 

* Napier's 'Life and Times of Claverhouse,' vol. i. p. 141. 

f ' Case for the Crown.' Any student, anxious to catch a last glimpse 
of all the ugliest features of Scotch Jacobitism and Episcopacy, should 
nerve himself to read Mr. Mark Napier, although the bluntness of moral 
discernment, the unconscious brutality of sentiment, and the elaborate 
fiiskiness of style, are very trying to one's patience. 

% * History Vindicated, &c.' 



IX.] KING JAMES' INDULGENCE. 147 

By the first Indulgence, of the 12th of February, 1687, 
though all persons countenancing field conventicles were to 
be prosecuted according to the utmost severity of law, the 
" moderate Presbyterians " were allowed to meet, in private, 
to hear indulged ministers ; while all laws, customs, and con- 
stitutions against Koman Catholics were abolished, and they 
were made free to exercise their religion and eligible for all 
public offices.* The inequality between the boon to the 
Presbyterians and that to the Roman Catholics was so 
glaring, and created so much distrust, that the King, by a 
proclamation of the 5th of July, though still proscribing 
field meetings, greatly relaxed the former limitations, and 
left the Presbyterians virtually at liberty to worship God 
freely and openly, according to their conscience.! 

Even among the Privy Councillors and bishops, some were 
found who refused to follow their master here and to concur 
in this policy, or sanction by their approval his unconsti- 
tutional exercise of the royal prerogative. But the King 
could pack a Privy Council as easily as revoke a penal law. 
The recusant Dukes of Hamilton and Queensberry were dis- 
placed. The Archbishop of Glasgow and the Bishop of Dun- 
keld were turned out of their sees. Sir George Mackenzie 
was superseded. A ministry was formed, partly of Roman 
Catholics, partly of Presbyterians. Among the former was 
the pervert Perth, with his brother Melfort ; among the latter 
was Sir John Dalrymple, son of the exiled Lord Stair. James, 
when Duke of York, had been the means of driving Stair 
from his high office of Lord President ; Sir John had himself 
lain for many months in prison, but now he accepted a place 
from his former oppressor, and was appointed Lord Advocate 
in the room of Sir George Mackenzie. Sir John's elevation 
was counselled by Sunderland, who hoped thereby to promote 
a political union between the Presbyterian and Popish parties. 
His own purpose was a different one, and embraced revenge 
for the past injuries inflicted on himself and his family, and 
the overthrow of the despotism under which his country was 
* YVorlrow, vol. iv. pp. 417-18. f Ibid. v< 1. ir. p. 427, 

L 2 



148 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

ground down. Associated with him, and with Melfort, was 
James Steuart, the accuser of Lauderdale and the adviser of 
Argyll.* 

The very fact of attempting such a union is the clearest 
proof of the political imbecility of James. The fusion 
of two irreconcilable forces was impossible. A hatred of j 
popery, and of the ecclesiastical domination which popery 
symbolised, was one of the most powerful and pervading 
constituents in Scottish national character. Prelacy — espe- 
cially popish prelacy — was held in general and sincere ab- 
horrence. Even those who accepted Episcopacy did so with 
no mediaeval faith in the order of bishops. To men like Sir 
George Mackenzie, the establishment of Episcopacy seemed 
the simplest way of putting an end to wearisome religious 
quarrels and disputes, and to the coarse sway of a body of 
clergy whose religion was full of puritanism, and whose 
politics were dangerously democratic! A moderate Episco- 
pacy, favoured by the Court, and backed by the august 
example and traditions of the Church of England, appeared 
more likely, than a somewhat divided and turbulent Pres- 

* Dairy mple, part i. "book iv. Burnet, vol. iii. Fountainhall. Wod- 
row. 

f Among many corroborations of what I state, one may be specially 
quoted. Evelyn, in his diary (9th of March, 1690) says, " I dined 
at the Bishop of St. Asaph's . . . with the famous lawyer Sir George 
McKenzie .... He related to us many particulars of Scotland, the 
present sad condition of it, the inveterate hatred which the Presbyterians 
show to the family of the Stewarts, and the exceeding tyranny of those 
bigots, who acknowledge no superior on earth, in civil or divine matters, 
maintaining that the people only have the right of government; their 
implacable hatred to the Episcopal order, and Church of England." He 
then proceeds to a statement, which Mr. Disraeli must have recollected 
when he penned his account (in ' Lothair ') of the origin of the United 
Presbyterian Church. "He observed that the first Presbyter dissents from 
our discipline were introduced by the Jesuits' order, about the 20 of 
Queen Elizabeth ; a famous Jesuit among them faining himself a Protes- 
tant, and who was the first who began to pray extempory, and brought in 
that which they since called and are still so fond of, praying by the Spirit. 
This Jesuit remained many years before he was discovered, afterwards died 

in Scotland, where he was buried at having yet on his monument 

' Piosa inter spinas.' " Evelyn's ' Memoirs,' edition of 1827, vol. iii. p. 293. 



IX.] ATTEMPTED FUSION. 149 

bytery, to foster a national religion, under whose auspices 
thoughtful and peaceful men could live, and cultivate trade, 
or letters, or politics, in quiet. Scottish Episcopacy became 
persecuting through its unprincipled use of the engines, 
which the State provided for the purpose of establishing it 
on a firm basis ; but in itself it was the nerveless creature of 
the State, and not one of its bishops dared to lift his voice, 
with the old independence and authority of a Douglas or a 
Guthrie. When, therefore, James showed his intention of 
forcing upon Scotland (where Episcopacy, by dint of twenty- 
six years of persecution, had almost succeeded in making a 
solitude which it might call peace) a new agent of religious 
strife, a new element pregnant with all the worst characters 
of the discord, schism, and spiritual tyranny, with which 
moderate and enlightened men must always be at war, there 
was a revolt. No wise man desired that the old battle should 
be fought over again, and with deadlier weapons. 

The majority of the bishops, Privy Councillors, and nobility, 
who were the minions of the Court, gave way to the royal will ; 
but a few, who, amidst all the excesses of the persecution, had 
not lost the instincts of statesmen, either openly remonstrated 
or stood silently aloof. Others, like Dalrymple and Steuart, 
who had hitherto been among the persecuted, now saw the 
turning of the tide, and came forward to take advantage of it ; 
understanding well that when the issue came to lie between 
Popery and Presbytery in Scotland the decision would be sharp 
and quick, and probably not caring much how it should fare 
in the meantime with the Episcopal establishment, which 
stood perplexed and disarmed between the two. 

The King's indulgence was, of course, indignantly scouted 
by the extreme Covenanters, who disdained to acknowledge 
an earthly monarch's right either to sanction, or to prohibit, 
their worship of their G-od. The great body of the Pres- 
byterians, however, availed themselves of the indulgence. 
Several of the exiled ministers returned from Holland. 
Those who were scattered through Scotland met in Edin- 
burgh, and sent up a letter of thanks to the King, to which 



150 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

he graciously replied in the unwonted terms : " We love you 
well . . . We resolve to protect you in your liberty, reli- 
gion, and properties, all your life." * Congregations began 
to be formed, and to " call " the ministers of their choice in 
the old fashion, Carstares, for one, receiving a call to Glasgow, t 
Large and spacious places of worship were erected in many 
of the towns, and even in some country parishes. The old 
meetings of Presbyteries and Synods, under their own mode- 
rators, were partially revived. The strong Presbyterian 
leaven revealed its presence and power all through the South 
and West, as soon as the iron repression of the " killing time " 
was lightened. 

This, then, was the position of affairs when Carstares, 
expecting that an Act of Indemnity would accompany the 
indulgence, spoke of coming over to spend some months 
with his kindred in Scotland. He had been led to look 
for an indemnity by James Steuart, with whom he was in 
constant correspondence, and whose letters played no un- 
important part among the preparatives of the Ke volution. J 
In the end of the year 1686 "William Penn went to Holland 
on a mission from King James. His instructions were to 
represent to the Prince of Orange the wisdom and charity of 
the King's policy of toleration, and to influence, if possible, 
the British refugees in its favour. The plausible Quaker 
did his best, and believed that he made a convert in James 
Steuart. On his return to London he told the King no man 
could do him better service among the fanatical Scots. 
Steuart's pardon was made out ; Albeville, James's envoy in 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 428. ' Hind let Loose,' p. 209. 

f Graham Dunlop MSS. 

% Lord Macaulay (chapter vii.) gives a very imperfect outline of Steuart's 
actings before the Kevolution. He speaks of "a letter" addressed by him 
to Fagel, which drew forth Fagel's celebrated reply. There was no such 
letter. Steuart corresponded with Carstares, and Carstares conveyed his 
views to Fagel and the Prince. There are twenty-two of his letters to 
Carstares among the Graham Dunlop MSS., copies of which, in Wodrow's 
hand, are to be seen in 8vo. No. 30, of the Wodrow MSS., in the Advocates' 
Library. 



IX.] STEUARTS LETTERS. 151 

Holland, assured him he should find himself not only in 
safety, but in favour, in Britain, and he accordingly left 
Utrecht for London, having first assured William of his 
steadfast fidelity to his interests.* His conduct at this point, 
and subsequently, is one of the many moral enigmas of that 
unhappy time. That a man so astute, so experienced — whose 
great legal skill and learning all his contemporaries admired 
— whose loyalty to Presbytery and to liberty had been proved 
by years of forfeiture and exile — should have been won over, 
by William Penn, to believe in James's honesty of purpose in 
the matter of the indulgences and penal laws, is almost in- 
credible. That a man apparently so honest and religious, so 
intelligent in his moral discernments, should have stained 
himself with the treachery of acting as he did, if he had no 
confidence in James's good faith, is as hard to believe. The 
problem evidently perplexed those who knew him better 
than we do. His own kinsman, the author of the ' Denham 
Memoir' in the Coltness Collections, confesses that he finds it 
hard to judge of his motives. Burnett cannot decide whether 
he really believed in the King's sincerity or not. DalrympleJ 
is uncertain whether he was actuated by " the affectation of 
loyalty natural to a new convert, or by a refinement of re- 
venge." Probably the real explanation of his conduct is, 
that wearied of exile, and hopeless of upsetting the esta- 
blished order of Church and State in Scotland by further 
plotting, he deemed it his wisest course to fall in with the 
King's policy, and adapt it, as best he could, to the end 
(which as a patriot he held in view) of securing some measure 
of civil and religious liberty for his native country. Like 
all moderate men, or trimmers, however, he attracted the 
suspicion and dislike of the vehement among both parties. 
The more rigid Presbyterians thought he betrayed the 
principles of the Covenant. The ardent royalists accused 
him of undermining the throne of the sovereign whom he 

* Coltness Collections, pp. 88-9. 

f Burnet, vol. iii. p. 214. 

% Dalrymple, part i. book iv. 



152 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

professed to serve.* That he helped to pave the way for 
the Kevolution is, at all events, certain. 

In a long series of letters addressed to Carstares, extend- 
ing through the whole of 1687, he urges on the Prince of 
Orange a compliance with the policy of James. The tone of 
the earlier letters is not so confident as that of those written 
under the immediate inspiration of the King's presence, 
which evidently had a certain influence, not the less distin- 
guishable by the reader because of the writer's disclaimers. 
On the 18th of July he writes, from Windsor, that it is a 
mistake to imagine that " the liberty " was originated by 
priests or Jesuits, and not by His Majesty's " own good sense 
and reason." The King, who must have either been at his 
elbow as he wrote, or have sketched what he was to say, is 
full of regret at the Prince's and Princess's disapproval of 
his measures. They ought to yield to his wishes, and in so 
doing gratify not only him, but the " far greater and better 
part of the nation ;" and then they might depend on the 
King giving the Prince full satisfaction as to the succession 
to the throne. t 

Again, on the 29th of July, he thinks he has answered all 
the objections urged in a letter he has received from Car- 
stares, t and has given such a confirmation of all that he had 
previously written, "from His Majesty himself, that I must 
still think it a fatality if your people remain obstinate . . . 
You wish for a union among all Protestants — and who would 
not ? — but believe me, the Church of England's irritation is 
such, and is now so visible in daily prints, that, if the Pro- 
testant dissenters shall not at this time obtain a legal 
establishment, they shall be crushed more than ever, when 
once this precarious liberty expires." 

* Burnet, vol. iii. p. 215. Balcarres' ' Account, &c.,' p. 11, 1st edition 
of 1714. 

t It was alleged that the King aimed at disposing of the crown, by way 
of testament, to whom he should think a proper successor ; and it was 
hinted that his choice might fall on his natural son, the Duke of Berwick. 
McCormick, pp. 27-8. Foimtainhall, p. 812. 

J Carstares' part of this correspondence is not to be found. 



IX.] STEUART'S LETTERS. 153 

He urges that the only security for the nonconformists is 
to have the liberty, which the King had granted by royal 
prerogative, fixed by law, and that in opposing this the Prince 
is opposing the interests of the Protestants — not, as he may 
think, obstructing the elevation of the Papists. " I intreat," 
he continues, " let me, at least, prevail with you to come 
over incognito, and appoint me a meeting, were it but for an 
hour. If you have a secret permission from the Hague it 
would promise more. But, however, let us endeavour good 
all we can ; and I assure you I have my warrant, though I 
was sorry to find it given so despondently, with a ' Well, 
well, but you will find him inflexible.' You say the want of 
an indemnity makes the Scots' liberty suspect; but I assure 
you His Majesty is most free to it, and it is only hindered at 
home by you may guess whom, but such as never were for 
this liberty, and like well of the fining ; without that the 
very liberty is more than Scots Presbyterians can bear, and 
that an indemnity with it would make them insupportable. 
But I'll tell you plainly, let the Prince consent and concur, 
and the Scots will get an indemnity, and his Highness all the 
satisfaction in other things he can demand." 

This letter was written, he says, subsequently, " not only 
with permission, but, according to His Majesty's mind, suf- 
ficiently expressed," and he is hurt at Carstares' long delay 
and great " coldness " in replying to it. He is ready, and has 
the King's commands, to cross to Holland, if a personal in- 
terview would be more effective than letters. The Prince 
and the Protestant dissenters, especially the Presbyterians, 
by opposing the liberty, are, in his opinion, only playing 
" the bishops' game," and " keeping up a scourge for their own 
backs," the intolerance of the Church of England being sure 
to increase. And they are doing this under a false impres- 
sion, for ever since he came to England he has seen that 
" security to a few Roman Catholics, and ease and safety to 
all his people, is that which His Majesty only desires." To 
all these pleas Carstares replied so cautiously and " coldly " 
as to show that they were urged to no purpose ; and Steuart 



154 WILLIAM CAR ST ABES. [Chap. 

at last writes, in October, from Edinburgh, that he sees he 
need add do more to what he has said in vain already. 

Finally, from London, on the 6th of November, he says : 
" To tell you the truth, Presbyterians are so feared and 
hated by you know whom in Scotland, and so strangely re- 
presented here, that it is much to keep up the liberty granted 
them, especially when they are so foolish as to give their 

[blank] all the advantages they can desire I am 

resolved to meddle no more in these matters. I hope men 
will not still say that I have been seeking self when they see 
I truly get nothing.* His Majesty truly doth rather increase 
his favour, and that is all I crave. Nay, I offered to him 
that, if he thought good, all Presbyterians should be excluded 
from public trust, provided they might have liberty only ; 
but he said he would have no such exclusions, though he 
knew I made the offer to remove the jealousies of some 
opposers." 

This long correspondence was carefully considered by the 
Prince, in consultation with Fagel, Carstares, and Burnet ; 
and it was decided that a reply, upon the whole subject, 
should be prepared, which might serve as a useful declara- 
tion of William's opinions and intentions. Fagel accordingly 
drew up a letter, that was rendered into English by Burnet,! 
in which, while it was declared that the Prince and Princess 
would gladly concur in abolishing any laws which attached 
penal consequences to certain religious opinions, they could 
not approve of the removal of the tests, or the admission of 
Koman Catholics to office. Steuart received this 4etter, and 
communicated it to Sunderland, to Melfort, who was " satis- 
fied" with it, and to the King, who was not. The King, he 
found, was " quite over that matter, being no way satisfied 
with the distinction made of the tests from the penal laws ; 

* In January, 1688, he got a pension of £300, said to be for " defraying 
his expenses to London." Fount ainhall, p. 847. 

f Burnet, vol. iii. p. 215. Fagel's letter and Steuart's reply to it, and also 
several extracts from Steuart's letters to Carstares, were printed at the time, 
1687-8. They will be found in the Advocates' Library, in a volume of 
'Tracts,' numbered 567; No. 47, and one of pamphlets, numbered T ^. 



IX.] FAGEL'S MANIFESTO. 155 

and no less positive that his Highness is neither to be pre- 
vailed y upon, nor so much as to be further treated with in 
this matter." This being the King's attitude, the report of 
the publication and disseminatiou of Fagel's letter alarmed 
and irritated Steuart, who probably dreaded both becoming 
the scapegoat of the royal anger at the utter failure of an 
undignified negotiation, and exposure to public dislike and 
distrust, on the discovery of the part he had played in the 
correspondence, to which Fagel's manifesto purported to be 
a reply. He writes to Carstares, on the 9th of December, 
begging that his letters be " suppressed and destroyed ;" but 
they had already served their turn. Fagel's manifesto was 
dispersed through England in thousands, and the late and 
rather lame response which Steuart published, in May, did 
nothing to erase the strong impression which the Dutch 
declaration had made upon the public mind. 

During the whole course of these negotiations Carstares 
was near the Prince, and in confidential intercourse with him. 
William, in particular, consulted his judgment in regard to 
the antecedents and characters of the many British refugees 
and malcontents, who resorted in ever larger numbers, to his 
Court, and he used to assert that he never in a single instance 
found Carstares attempting to mislead him.* 

Burnet's complete silence about Carstares is rather odd. 
It is probably the result of jealousy. In his answers to the 
criminal letters issued, in Scotland, against* him in April 
1687, he says he is " wholly a stranger to Mr. Carstares, who 
is named as a witness against him," and does not know his 
face ; t but that this ignorance of his great patron's intimate 
counsellor and private chaplain should have continued until 
after the Revolution is exceedingly unaccountable, unless the 
one Scotch clergyman designedly avoided the other. Even 
in his narrative of his interview with the Prince after the 
landing at Torbay, at which Carstares was present, Burnet 
does not refer to him, nor does he mention the religious ser- 
vice which followed the disembarkation, and which Carstares 
* McCormick, p. 25. f Wodrow, vol. iv, p, 409. 



156 WILLIAM CABSTABE8. [Chap. 

conducted, at the bead of the troops. Either the vain and 
forward Episcopalian thought the grave and discreet Pres- 
byterian chaplain beneath his notice ; or he discerned in him 
a rival influence with the Prince, strong enough to stir his 
jealousy and dislike. 

The malcontents mustered more thickly. The emissaries 
passed more and more busily between London and the 
Hague. Letter after letter reached the Prince assuring him 
of support. The very army and navy of his hapless father- 
in-law wavered in their allegiance. Scotland, managed by 
Sir John Dalrymple and well-chosen agents of his father's, 
was ready for revolt. At last the cool and wary champion, 
the centre of two nation's hopes, saw that the time had come 
to answer to the call, and raise his standard in defence of the 
" Protestant religion and the liberties of England." The 
final preparations, the voyage to Torbay, the successful 
landing, and the triumphant march to London, are among 
the most familiar pictures in history. 

Along with his Court-chaplaincy, Carstares held, as I have 
already said, the office of second minister of the English 
Church at Leyden, to which he had been appointed early in 
1688.* On being required by the Prince to accompany the 
expedition to England, he obtained leave of absence from the 
burgomasters of Leyden, but, with characteristic caution, he 
offered no resignation of his charge, while the issue of the 
enterprise was still uncertain. He sailed for England in the 
same ship with the Prince, and landed with him. Burnet — 
who also was one of the royal chaplains, and who was in 
another vessel, with the Prince's household — got ashore as 
quickly as he could, and bustling up to the place where the 
Prince stood, began to ask inopportune questions about the 
proposed time and line of march. William, who had heard 
some heedless remark of the talkative divine, to the effect 
that it seemed predestined his Highness should not set foot 
on English soil, took him good-humouredly by the hand ; 
but made no further answer to his queries, than by asking 
* Steven, p. 312. 



IX.] T ORB AY. 157 

him what he thought of predestination now, and bidding 
him — if he would be busy — go consult the Canons.* Car- 
stares, who was standing beside the Prince during this 
colloquy, interposed with the suggestion that as soon as the 
troops should be safe on shore, it would be right, and would 
produce a salutary effect not only on the army, but on the 
people of the country, that a solemn service of thanksgiving 
should be held. The Prince cordially assented. When the 
men were all on shore, they were drawn up on parade, and 
Carstares performed divine service ; after which the troops, as 
they stood along the beach, joined in singing the 118th 
Psalm before they encamped. This religious rite produced 
a profound impression on the army.t 

Carstares remained in constant attendance on William in 
his advance, and on his arrival in London. 

* McCormick, p. 34. Burnet ; and note, vol. iii. 328. 

f McCormick, p. 34. Dalryinple, part i.book vi. p. 160. Dalrymple says 
this suggestion was the foundation of " the future favour of Carstares." The 
regard in which William held Carstares was, however, of earlier date and 
deeper foundation. I find in the dedication to Carstares of Robert Fleming's 
" Pindarick Poem," in memory of "William the Great," "to have been 
eight and twenty years in his service, and to have had free and constant 
access to him all that time, and all this without a frown, is a thing, all 
circumstances being considered, that can hardly be paralleled in history." 
Twenty-eight years from 1702 carry us back to 1674 — the time at which 
as we have seen, Carstares' first imprisonment began., 



158 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



CHAPTER X. 

Farewell to Leyden — Scottish Revolution — Carstares' position — Presbyte- 
rians and Episcopalians — Dundee — Ecclesiastical condition of Scotland. 

Caestaees never went back to his congregation in the 
"Begyn Chapel," at Leyden. William could not dispense 
with his services at Court ; and soon after the successful 
revolution had established the Prince at Whitehall, Carstares 
gently took leave of Leyden in the following letter : — 

" A Leurs Seigneuries, Messeigneurs Les Bourgue-Maistres de la 
" Ville de Leyden. 

" Ayant des obligations si grandes, et en si grande nombre, a vos 
Seigneuries, qui eurent la bonte de me considerer d'une maniere 
si particuliere lors que j'estois en votre ville, cornme estranger, et 
reduit a quitter le pais de ma naissance, a fin de pouvoir ailleurs 
jouir du repos de ma conscience, que je ne pouvois avoir en ma 
patrie, je creu qu'il estoit de mon devoir, de me conduir d'une 
maniere, qui ne donnoit a vos Seigneuries aucun sujet de croir 
qu'elles avoient repandu leur faveurs sur une personne qui ne sceut 
pas les faire valoir comme il faut, et en avoir toute la recon- 
noissance possible. C'est pourquoy, Messeigneurs, comme je ne 
voulois pas, sans le consentment de vos Seigneuries, entreprendre 
de disposer de ma personne en accompagnant sa Majeste du present, 
en sa derniere expedition, laquelle fut entreprise avec autant de 
hazard qu'elle a este suivie et couronne d'un succes glorieux ; qui, 
comme il a ete, sera encore a ce que j'espere a l'avenir, pour la 
surete de l'interest des protestans, et a la confusion des desseins 
de leurs adversaires. Ainsi, je ne scaurois estre content, si je ne 
fais scavoir a vos Seigneuries, que je continue a etre ici, en vertu 
des memes commandemens par les quelles vos Seigneuries m'ordon- 
nerent d'y venir, et que je ne aurois pas plutot obtenu de sa 
Majeste la permission de quitter l'Angleterre ; que ma premiere et 



X.] STATE OF SCOTLAND. 159 

principale tasche sera de vous rendre mes devoirs, comrne a nies 
genereux bienfaiteurs : Et je travaillerai, avec l'aide de Dieu, ou a 
m'aquitter du devoir de mon ministere envers l'eglise Angloise, qui 
est sous la protection de vos Seigneuries, ou du moins a vous rendre 
des raisons pourquoy je ne puis pas le faire, lesquelles seront 
telles que j'espere qu'elles ne satisfieront pas seulement vos 
Seigneuries a mon egard ; mais aussi qu'elles les engageront a 
continuer envers l'eglise Angloise la meme faveur que vous avez 
eu la bonte de comniencer en ma personne. Et je ne doute point, 
que cela ne tournera a l'avantage de cette grande ville, et de cette 
fameuse universite, ausquelles vos Seigneuries ont un si grand 
interest. Cependant je tascheray de tout mon pouvoir de faire en 
sorte que cela reussisse au bien de l'une et de l'autre. 
" Messeigneuries 

" de vos seigneuries, le tres humble 
" et tres fidelle sujet et serviteur, 
" William Caestaees." 

The settlement of the affairs of Scotland was an enterprise 
which made a sagacious Scottish counsellor specially useful 
to the Prince of Orange. Scotland was remote. Its factions 
were embittered with a bitterness hardly known in England. 
Its political life was demoralised to an extent a stranger 
could scarcely understand. Its religion was deformed on 
one side by an irrational fanaticism, on another by a hard 
and insolent intolerance. Its public men were needy, 
selfish, and unprincipled. It possessed a national indepen- 
dence, in virtue of which it might legally refuse to grant the 
Scottish crown to the sovereign of England. The revenues 
and the troops, which it could contribute to his resources in 
the event of foreign war or domestic turmoils, were of little 
account, compared with those of England ; although, if dis- 
affected or hostile, its means of annoyance to its powerful 
southern neighbour were almost unlimited. Its Highlands 
were inhabited by a half-savage people, alien in race, lan- 
guage, manners, and religion from the Lowlanders ; and the 
two races were full of mutual hatred and distrust. Every 
political difficulty, which arose in a country disorganised 
through misgovernment, and seething with the elements of 



160 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

revolution, was intensified by the infusion of religious dis- 
cord and sectarian enmities. At a time when continental 
statesmen, accepting the principles of Richelieu, were trying 
to remove religion from the political arena, the Scots were 
stubbornly insisting on mixing the secular and sacred, and 
were constantly intruding the odium theologieum on the 
conflicts of the senate and the field.* The keenness of 
Scotch faction, the fervour of Scotch jealousies and feuds, 
the pettiness of many of the interests involved, the difficulty 
of knowing what to believe and whom to trust, the pertina- 
city of the place-hunters, the contradictory claims and 
assertions of the religious parties, were all baffling and 
tedious to a foreigner used to politics of a larger scope, 
sufficiently preoccupied with the affairs of England, and 
personally a stranger to almost all the men with whom he 
had to deal. That familiar knowledge of the intricate 
questions at issue, and of the persons on whom their settle- 
ment must chiefly depend, which he did not possess, and 
could not acquire, he obtained in Carstares ; and amongst a 
multitude who sought their own advantage, and were ready 
to serve him or betray him for the highest bribe, William 
knew he could always find in this one man a calm, experi- 
enced, and impartial judgment, a proved and unselfish 
fidelity, and counsel which was neither warped by personal 
desire of gain, nor inflamed by political or ecclesiastical 
ambition. The official position which Carstares already held 
at Court, as chaplain, was in due time confirmed, and had a 
proper stipend added to it ; but from the beginning of those 
transactions which ended in the offer of the crown of Scot- 
land to William and Mary, and in the re-establishment of 
Presbytery, he was virtually William's confidential adviser 
and secretary for Scotch affairs, and, as such, wielded a 
greater power than that of any of the ostensible ministers 
and officers of state. 

* " The English were for a civil league : we for a religious Covenant," 
writes Baillie (' Letters,' vol. ii. p. 90) in the days of the Westminster 
Assembly ; and the words indicate at once the weakness and the strength 
of all Scotch political action from the Reformation to the Union. 



X.] THE SCOTCH BISHOPS. 161 

William had, before leaving Holland, addressed to the 
people of Scotland a declaration, in which their wrongs were 
rehearsed, and concurrence in his enterprise was invited * It 
made its way to Scotland, and, in spite of the prohibition of 
the Privy Council, was freely circulated, and received with 
general rejoicing. The bishops, however, hastened to protest 
against the common sentiment, by an effusive expression of 
their own unalterable loyalty. Many years had passed since 
Gladstanes, the "tulchan" Archbishop of St. Andrews, had 
said to James VI., "No estate are your Majesty's creatures 
as we are ;" but the " creatures " of James VII. were not 
ashamed to repeat the confession. The King asked the 
English bishops to declare their " abhorrence " of the Dutch 
invasion, f They declined. Their existence did not depend 
on the caprice of a despot. It was " broad-based upon a 
people's will." Their office was secured by English law, and 
reverenced by the English nation. When James sent seven 
of them to the Tower, he raised a storm of wrath from Cum- 
berland to Cornwall. Had he laid up all the Scotch prelates 
in Edinburgh Castle, and fed them there with the " bread of 
adversity and the water of affliction," the one half of the 
Scottish nation would have looked on with a kind of humorous 
surprise, the other would have believed he had been divinely 
led to do justice on those who had worn out the Saints of the 
Most High. The English bishops regarded James's throne 
with an attachment which was rooted in a constitutional prin- 
ciple, and not in a personal affection : the Scotch with an 
attachment, akin to that of the hound to the master who has 
fed him when he wanted food, and lashed him when he needed 
discipline. They gave utterance to this attachment now; ad- 
dressing the deceitful, dull-witted, hard-hearted, loose-living 
convert to Popery and votary of absolutism, to whom they owed 
their places, as the " darling of Heaven ;" praying that his 
hapless baby might inherit "the illustrious and heroic virtues" 
of his father ; promising to foster in their flocks a steadfast 

* Wodrow, vol iv. p. 470. Burnet, vol. iii. p. 302. 
t Burnet, vol. Hi. p. 315. 

M 



162 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

allegiance to King James " as an essential part of their reli- 
gion ;" and not permitting themselves to doubt that Heaven 
would bestow on him two gifts (which were never to be his), 
" the hearts of his subjects, and the necks of his enemies."* 

The bishops' address did neither James nor themselves 
any good. The Prince of Orange's declaration had free 
course, and was publicly read at the crosses of the chief 
burghs ; and in Glasgow the two archbishops, along with 
the pope, were burned in effigy by the students of the 
university, without any interference on the part of the 
authorities. A savage riot followed in Edinburgh, ending in 
the wreck of the beautiful chapel of Holyrood. The King's 
troops having been drawn up to England, on the rumour of 
invasion, all control of popular passion was lost ;t and the law 
had been too long the associate of tyranny and injustice to 
be respected for its own sake. The spirit of insubordination 
spread. Before the end of the year, all the western and 
south-western districts, where lay the strongholds of Presby- 
tery, were in disorder. The fanatical " Hillmen " descended 
from their coverts, and, inflaming the passions of the more 
peaceable peasants and burghers, roused them to wage a petty 
war against the obnoxious Episcopal ministers. No life was 
taken, and no gross outrage committed ; but many of the 
" curates," as they were called, were driven from their manses, 
and forbidden, with insults and threats, to return. Many, con- 
scious of their unpopularity, and dreading the hatred of their 
parishioners, deserted their charges of their own accord 4 
Meanwhile, men of " all sorts, degrees, and persuasions " 
were flocking to London, in the hope of. winning some of the 
prizes of the hour, or of exercising some control upon the 
course of events.§ The Presbyterians mustered numerously 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 468. 

f Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 473. Balcarres' 'Account' (original edition of 
1714), p. 37, et seq. 

% Grub's ' Ecclesiastical History,' vol. iii. p. 294. ' A Memorial of the 
Affairs of the Church of Scotland since the Revolution,' among the Graham. 
Dunlop MSS. (not in Carstares's handwriting). 

§ Balcarres, p. 48. 



X.] BISHOP BOSK 163 

and confidently. William's Scotch friends and advisers in 
Holland had all been Presbyterian, as he was himself. The 
expectations of their correspondents in Scotland had been 
flattered by reports of the Prince's sympathy with their 
sufferings, and desire to recognise their claims.* Besides 
Carstares, he had brought with him from Holland, or been 
followed by, Fletcher of Saltoun, Sir Patrick Hume, Lord 
Melville, Lord Stair, and the Earl of Argyll, son of the 
martyred earl, and grandson of the martyred marquis. The 
official representative of the Episcopal clergy was Eose, 
bishop of Edinburgh, who had been commissioned by his 
brethren, in the month of November, to repair to London, in 
order to assure King James of their devotion, and to consult 
with the English prelates on the alarming malady of the 
affairs of Church and State. By the time Rose reached 
London King James was a fugitive ; and the bishop had to 
wait to see what favour he might find with his successor.t 
Had he been a man of more policy, or of less obstinacy 
(perhaps even in a Scotch bishop clinging to the tattered skirts 
of James VII., it deserves to be called fidelity), he might 
have found much favour, and might, possibly, have saved 
the Scottish hierarchy from downfall. To William at 
Whitehall, Scotch Presbyterianism did not appear to be so 
potent an element in the national life, as to William at the 
Hague. During the twenty-eight years of its enforced sup- 
pression, Presbytery had undeniably dwindled in numbers 
and in influence. William, who was a Broad Churchman^ or 
" Latitudinarian " (as the phrase ran in his own day), looked 

* Wodvow, vol. iv. p. 436. 

f Evelyn in his diary (15th of January, 1689) says he dined, on that 
day, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, where were Sir George Mackenzie 
and a Scotch archbishop. "I found," he says, "by the Lord Advocate" 
[Sir George had been restored to the office in February 1688] " that the 
bishops of Scotland (who indeed were little worthy of that character, and 
had done much mischief in that church) were now coming about to the 
true interest, in this conjuncture which threatened to abolish the whole 
hierarchy in that kingdom/' &c. The " Scotch archbishop " must have 
been Bishop Eose, as neither of the archbishops went to London. 

M 2 



164 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

upon forms of Church government with indifference; and 
while prepared to tolerate all, was inclined to give the 
sanction of national establishment to those only, which were 
upheld by supporters of his own authority. A thorough 
Erastian, he would yield no recognition to dogmatic or 
hierarchic pretensions, which were advanced by the avowed 
opponents of his government and policy. While tolerating 
all sections of the Church, he would help to establish 
that one, and that only, which he understood would be most 
in harmony with his own government, and with the wishes of 
the people. He would not maintain a church hostile to 
himself. He would not impose one hateful to the people. 
With these principles, the ecclesiastical settlement of Scot- 
land perplexed him. He saw that Presbytery had lost 
ground ; and he saw also that Episcopacy was Jacobite and 
intolerant. He did not wish to put it down ; but if it would 
not abjure Jacobitism and intolerance, it must be put down. 
He had the promise of hearty Presbyterian support. Rose 
might have given him a promise equally gratifying, on 
behalf of the Episcopalians. Those whom Rose represented 
were not the men to quarrel with his policy, if its result 
should be to keep them in safe possession of their sees. 
William, through Compton, bishop of London, intimated to 
him that if the Scotch bishops and clergy would give him 
their support, he would give them his, and " throw off the 
Presbyterians." * Rose would not take the hint. At length 
he was admitted to an interview. " Are you going for Scot- 
land ?" asked William. " Yes, sir," answered Rose, " if you 
have any commands for me." " I hope," replied the Prince, 
" you will be kind to me, and follow the example of England." 
The bishop's answer was, " Sir, I will serve you as far as law, 
reason, or conscience, shall allow me." William turned on 
his heel without a word; and the fate of the Scotch Episco- 
pal establishment was virtually sealed. f He had desired to 

* See Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 264. Grub, vol. iii. p. 297, and the 
authorities there quoted, 
t Ibid. 






X.] "HINTS TO THE KING:' 165 

save it because he believed it was acceptable to many, if not 
most, of the powerful, though unprincipled, nobility of the 
kingdom ; because its continuance would secure a uniformity 
in the established religions of the three kingdoms ; and 
because he wished to disturb, as little as possible, the exist- 
ing machinery of Church and State : but to preserve a dis- 
affected. Episcopate and a nonjuring clergy was impossible. 

His finessing with the Episcopalians must have been dis- 
approved by Carstares ; and the result, confirming the truth 
of Carstares's opinion of them, would no doubt lead William 
to lean more trustfully than ever on his chaplain's judgment. 
Carstares had warned him to beware of the Episcopal party. 
He had induced the Presbyterian ministers to send up com- 
missioners to London with a dutiful and grateful address ; 
and he had introduced the deputation to the Prince, and 
used his utmost influence in their favour.* He assured the 
King that those whom they represented had been, and must 
necessarily be, his truest supporters in Scotland. The Epis- 
copalians, on the other hand, had been, and were likely to 
remain, his enemies. In a paper entitled ' Hints to the 
King,' which McCormick possessed, written in Carstares's 
hand, we find the substance of the arguments which he used 
in behalf of the Presbyterians.f " The Episcopal party," he 
writes, " were generally disaffected to the Eevolution, and 
enemies to the principles upon which it was conducted : 
whereas the Presbyterians had almost to a man declared for 
it, and were, moreover, the great body of the nation ; none, 
therefore, could think it strange that the friends of a govern- 
ment should enjoy all the encouragement it can afford, 

* The address presented by the commissioners of the clergy, as well as 
that fi'om the city of Edinburgh, was drawn up in Carstares's handwriting, 
and no doubt they were his composition. McCormick says he had the 
original copies, but they are not now to be found. McCormick, p. 37. 

f Dalrymple says (part ii. bookvi.) : " The person who persuaded King 

"William to settle Presbytery in Scotland was Carstares The Kev. 

Mr. McCormick. in whose hands Carstares's papers are, gave me the heads 
of his discourse to King William, the freedom of which does equal honour 
to him who spoke and to him who listened to it." 



166 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

whilst it withheld its countenance from open and avowed 
enemies. The Episcopal clergy in Scotland, particularly the 
prelates, had been so accustomed to warp their religious 
tenets with the political doctrines of regal supremacy, pas- 
sive obedience, and non-resistance, that it would be incon- 
sistent with the very end of his coming, to continue Epis- 
copacy, upon its present footing in Scotland. As it was 
impossible for his Majesty to show that favour to the 
nonconformists in England, who were a numerous body, and 
at the same time zealously attached to revolution principles, 
which he was naturally disposed to do, because such a con- 
duct would naturally awaken the jealousy of the Church of 
England, here was an opportunity of effectually demonstrating 
to them that the discouragements, they might labour under 
during his administration, were not owing to any prejudice he 
entertained against them, but to the necessity of the times, 
and the delicate situation in which he was placed." 

Whatever pleas might be urged, however, on either side, 
for Presbytery or Episcopacy, the ultimate decision must 
mainly rest, as William knew, with the Scots themselves. 
The clergy, Episcopal and Presbyterian, were eager ; but the 
laity, especially the Episcopal laity, were comparatively 
apathetic. Of the large number of them that had gathered 
in London, few seemed inclined to pronounce decidedly either 
for the bishops or the presbyters. They were, in fact, feeling 
their way among many pitfalls, and were more concerned for 
the security of their properties, and a share of the spoils of 
office, than for the liberties and religion of their country. 
Many of them who had hitherto been Episcopalians, had been 
so simply because Episcopacy was the official religion. Some 
of them, who sided in politics with the Presbyterian party, were 
not attached to Presbyterianism from religious conviction. 

The thirty peers and eighty gentlemen, who took coun- 
sel together in London at William's invitation, and who, 
after three days' deliberation, begged him to assume the 
administration until a convention, summoned for the 16th of 
March, should meet, exhibited not a few of the unpleasant 



X.] TEE CONVENTION. 167 

characteristics which degraded the political life of their time 
and country. Under the outward unanimity of their pro- 
posal to the Prince, there lurked dissimulation, mutual dis- 
trust, greedy self-seeking, predetermined treachery. The 
course of their debates, as far as we can follow it, illustrated 
the wary cunning with which the chiefs of the great houses, 
and owners of large estates, tried to forestal the chances of 
ill fortune on either hand. The Duke of Hamilton declared 
for the convention ; his son, the Earl of Arran, for the recall 
of King James, and the summoning of a free parliament.* 
This division of interests between father and son was a 
favourite device to save the lands and honours of the house, 
whichever party should prevail. As Hamilton and Arran took 
opposite sides ; so did Queensberry and Drumlanrig. The 
Marquis of Atholl and his eldest son followed their example. 
Stair was with the Prince, while Sir John Dairy mple had 
been Lord Advocate to King James. James Steuart had 
been the trusted agent of the late King, while his brother 
was noted for his enthusiastic Presbyterianism. When 
Montgomery took to plotting, at a later day, it was his 
own brother who betrayed him. 

It is not out of such materials that heroic history is made; 
and the history of the Scotch Convention, in w 7 hich men like 
these were the leaders, is not heroic. The Convention itself 
was, strictly speaking, an illegality. Its members were 
chosen by electors who had set at naught the restrictions of 
the still existing Test. Bat it could not, otherwise, have 
been a fair representation of the opinion of the country. 
Had the test been observed, the Convention would have been 
full of Tories ; as it was, it was well filled with Whigs, sent 
up from the counties and burghs. There were fifty members 
for burghs ; forty-nine members for counties ; forty-two 
peers, and nine bishops. Hamilton was proposed as president 
by the revolutionary party. He was but a trimmer at the 
best, with little tact, no firmness, and no sincerity of principle ; 
but his election was carried against that of Atholl, the 
* Balcarres. Dalrymple, vol. i. book vii. 



168 . WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Tory nominee, by a large majority. This victory determined 
the fate of the revolution. The waiters upon Providence 
went over to the winning side. 

When the next vote was taken upon the resolutions de- 
claring that James had forfeited the throne, and that William 
and Mary should be declared King and Queen of Scotland, 
only five members voted " Nay." The Convention wasted no 
time. Amidst much agitation and wavering within, and the 
conflicting terrors of Dundee and the westland rabble with- 
out, the revolutionary business was pushed on. The " Claim 
of Eight" was rapidly adjusted; the "list of grievances" 
drawn up. In the former it was declared that " Prelacy and 
the superiority of any office in the Church above presbyters 
is, and hath been, a great and insupportable grievance and 
trouble to this nation, and contrary to the inclination of the 
generality of the people ever since the Eeformation, and, 
therefore, ought to be abolished." 

The Earl of Argyll, Sir James Montgomery, and Sir John 
Dalrymple were despatched to London, to convey to the elected 
sovereigns the offer of the crown, and to tender to them the 
coronation oath. On the 11th of May these commissioners 
executed their trust in the Banqueting House at Whitehall. 
Argyll, whose grand sire had crowned Charles II. at Scone, re- 
hearsed the words of the oath, which William and Mary, with 
uplifted right hand, according to the Scottish mode of affirma- 
tion, repeated after him. At the last clause, which contained 
a promise to root out all heretics and enemies of the true 
worship of God, William paused. " I will not," he said, " lay 
myself under any obligation to be a persecutor." Neither the 
words of the oath, nor the laws of Scotland, replied the com- 
plaisant commissioners, laid any such obligation on him. " In 
that sense then, I swear," said William ; and the ceremony 
was completed.* The liberal and Protestant hero was the 

* This significant incident might, one should suppose, have been regarded 
as introducing and sanctioning, with a high authority, an era of lax interpre- 
tation and subscription of formulas. But, for all that, the framers of tests 
and exactors of subscription have scarcely, even yet, been discouraged. 



X.] DUNDEE. 169 

sovereign of Scotland. In northern as in southern Britain 
the Eevolution was an accomplished fact.* 

The only real and energetic devotion to the lost cause was 
concentrated in the person of Claverhouse, now Dundee. 
His star burned brighter towards its setting, and his romantic 
title of " Bonnie Dundee " gains a certain chivalrous lustre 
from his unselfish faithfulness to a ruined master ; and nobler 
associations gather round it than round his earlier name. 
Among the many false, time-serving, and mediocre politicians 
of the Convention, his character shines out in a fine light 
of military genius, personal daring, quick insight, and single- 
hearted loyalty, which almost persuade us to overlook for 
the time his cruelty as the persecutor of the Covenanters, and 
the harsh instrument of the tyranny of the Privy Council. 
His last walk along the Mall with King James and Lord 
Balcarres, when, on the eve of his own flight, the King con- 
fided to him the charge of the military affairs of Scotland ; 
his brief attendance at the convention ; his interview with 
the Duke of Gordon at the postern of the Castle which the 
Duke still held, half-heartedly, for King James ; his retire- 
ment, with his squadron of veterans, beyond the Forth ; his 
raising of the Highland clans, and the artfully prolonged 
campaign in which he evaded and perplexed his slow anta- 
gonist, Mackay ; and, finally, his eagle swoop upon his enemy 
from the heights of Killiecrankie, on the summer eve, when 
" the evening star was shining on Schiehallion's distant head," 
are familiar to all Scotsmen — scenes of our country's stormy 
history too intensely coloured with native hues of passion 
and perfervid force, to be regarded without a throb of 
sympathy. Not so well known are the keen political ability, 
the fiery power of influencing and controlling men, the 
humorous discrimination of character and motive, that mark 
the last period of Dundee's career — emerging into their fair 
proportions when, relieved from the drudgery of a base 

* Among the older authorities for the narrative given, I would refer the 
reader to Dalrymple ; among the more recent, to Grub, Cunningham, and 
Hill Burton. 



170 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

military police, he found himself the last stay of an ancient 
dynasty, and the head of an army which was to be the 
arbiter of a nation's fate. These characteristics reveal them- 
selves in his conduct, and in his letters, which are the grains 
of salt that preserve Mr. Mark Napier's third volume of his 
< Memoirs.' One letter, of date "27 June, 1689, Moy, in 
Lochaber," to Melfort, who was with King James in Ireland, 
is so characteristic, and illustrates so vividly the broken and 
distracted condition of persons and affairs in Scotland, that 
it may be quoted. He is referring to letters which had 
been sent to him, for transmission to supposed loyalists.* 
" Most of the persons to whom they are directed are 
either put under bond, or in prisons, or gone out of the 
kingdom. The Advocate is gone for England, a very honest 
man, firm beyond belief ; and Atholl is gone too who did not 
know what to do. Earl Hume who is very frank is taken 
prisoner to Edinburgh, but will be let out on security. Earl 
Breadalbane keeps close in a strong house he has, and pre- 
tends the gout. Earl Errol stays at home. So does Aber- 
deen. Earl Marischal is at Edinburgh but does not meddle. 
Earl Lauderdale is right and at home. The Bishops? I 
know not where they are ! They are now the Kirk invisible. 
I will be forced to open the letter and send copies attested 

* A great deal too much has been made by Sir Walter Scott and Lord 
Macaulay about Dundee's bad spelling. It was no worse than that of 
most of his contemporaries. Here are some samples, in proof, from the 
Leven and Melville Papers. Duke of Hamilton : " I cannot answer yours 
till the nixt, so shall only add that I ame, &c. I hope your Lop. will, 
accquaint the King with what I have writt." Earl of Eglinton : " I can- 
not sufetiantly apologis for my self, for the only fait I ever was giltie of." 
Sir John Dairy mple : " I see clearly the Lords binch in Parliament is very 
right, except Kos, Annandaill and Mortoun. The barrons are pretty 
weill, bot the borrows are all possest. Argyl is not yett arry ved. Lord Mel- 
ville : " Between nyn and ten of the cloake last night at Hamptown Court." 
Marquis of Atholl : " I understand that my poor misfortunat sone Mungo 
oues his inlargement to your favour." Lord Balcarres : " The Counsell 
order me to wreit to the Yicount of Dundie and procure the Leard of Blairs 
liberty or I must goe to closs prisson again." Sir William LocMart : 
" Som tyms tuo, thrie or four did it. . . , Pray your Lordship mynd my 
brother Harie for L. C. Douglas companie." 



X.] K1LLIECRANKIE. 171 

to them, and keep the original till I can find out our Pri- 
mate. The poor ministers are sorely oppressed over all. 
They generally stand right .... Tarbat is a great villain. 
Besides what he has done at Edinburgh, he has endeavoured 
to seduce Locheil by offers of money, ivhich is under his 
hand. He is now gone up to secure his faction, (which is 
melting) the two Dalrymples and others, against Skelrnorly, 
Pol wart, Cardross, Ross, and others now joined with that 
worthy Prince DuJce Hamilton .... Even Casillis is gone 
astray misled by Gibby [Burnet] .... All these will break 
out, and many more when the King lands or any from him."* 
And then he goes on with eager and sagacious plans for the 
campaign and the recovery of the government ; and all the 
answer he could get was a promise of reinforcements that 
never came, and a lying declaration from King James, con- 
taining an offer of a general indemnity and indulgence, 
which his knavish secretary, in an accompanying letter, 
explained could be withdrawn whenever His Sacred Majesty 
pleased.t Just one month later, on the 27th of July, Dundee 
fell at Killiecrankie, and the cause of James fell with him — 
the cause of mediaeval feudalism in government and in reli- 
gion, as opposed to that of modern liberty, — never to rear its 
head again in Scotland, except in spasmodic and wasted effort 
to recover the irrecoverable. 

Scotland had now an elected king, the chosen of the national 
representatives. In the very act of mounting the throne of a 
countrv,in which religious feud had raged with virulence for 
more than a century, he had paused to refuse to assume any 
function as a defender of a creed, or a rooter out of heretics 
and schismatics. And though royal intrigue and Erastian 
policy had, for a century, been devoted to the establishment 
of Episcopacy, the formal instrument, which accompanied the 
offer of the regal power, denounced that mode of church 
government as an intolerable grievance. While the King's 
refusal sprang from his own loyalty to the great principles of 

* Napier's ' Memoirs,' vol. iii. p. 601 . 

f Balcarres, p. 109. Burnet, vol. iv. p. 47. 



172 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

religious freedom, and could not be altogether pleasing to a 
people very ignorant of these principles, and among whom 
one religious faction had never willingly tolerated another, 
the denunciation of Episcopacy proceeded from the repre- 
sentatives of the people themselves, and seemed to be the 
solemn expression of a national conviction. The conviction, 
however, was little better than a mongrel. There were among 
those who avowed it politicians, such as the Earl of Crawford, 
whose love for Presbytery was combined with an anxious 
hankering after the rents of bishoprics.* There were nobles, 
whose pride of place and family brooked ill the parade of 
episcopal titles, and the gravity of ecclesiastical rank, which 
put the dignitaries of the Church on a level with themselves. 
There were men, such as Stair (who had served alike under 
Cromwell and under Charles), or his son Sir John (who, as 
James's Lord Advocate, had hanged Kenwick, the last of the 
" martyrs," and was now an eager revolutionist), to whom 
forms of church government were matters of indifference, 
but who found the Presbyterian form most in accord with 
their own political ideas and ends. There were those who 
had a sincere hatred of the wickedness of the system of which, 
since the Kestoration, Episcopacy had been a central part. 
There were, especially, many truly attached, from education 
and conviction, to Presbytery, and who, though contemning 
the wild extremes of the fanatics, and with none of the 
old Covenanters' hope of seeing their own model and creed 
established throughout the empire, rejoiced to think that the 
day of their re-establishment, in Scotland at least, had now 
come. Even those who were inclined to maintain Episcopacy 
were little hopeful of being able to do so. It had done 
wickedly. It had been upheld by brutal force. There was 
no counting on the compliance with it, which years of persecu- 
tion had produced, being a sincere compliance. If Episcopacy 
were to continue, the disaffection and fanaticism of the " Hill- 

* " The bishoprics that my father had right to were many ; but those 
he was possessed of were only Caithness, Ross, Murray, Dunkeld, and 
Dunblane." Lord Crawford, Leven and Melville Papers, p. 580. 



X.] THE CAMERONIANS. 173 

men " must continue also, and increase. If it were abolished, 
the whole country might unite in a moderate Presbyterianism. 
Besides, William had been accepted as the king of England. 
Unless the union of the crowns was to be revoked, he must 
be made king of Scotland too ; and without the concurrence 
of the Presbyterians of all parties, he never could be made 
king. Episcopacy must go, or the country must gird up its 
loins for a civil war within its own borders, and for a war 
with England. Considerations such as these appear to haye 
ruled the decision of the majority of the Convention, in voting 
Episcopacy an intolerable grievance, which it behoved the 
redresser of the nation's wrongs to abolish. 

The decision, though more or less agreeable to the mass of 
the people, was of course grossly offensive to the Episcopal 
clergy, and yet fell far short of the desires of the fanatical 
Presbyterians. Nothing would satisfy these, short of a de- 
nunciation of Episcopacy as sinful in itself, and a renewal of 
the Solemn League and Covenant. The low ground of prac- 
tical policy, on which the Convention had taken its stand, was 
in their judgment unworthy of the children of the Covenant, 
and to promise allegiance to an uncovenanted king little 
better than apostasy. They held excited meetings and used 
violent language ; but the dragoons no longer dispersed their 
conventicles, and their stern military spirit was judiciously 
allowed to expend itself in legitimate warfare. The " Came- 
ronian " regiment, 800 strong, was drafted from their ranks, 
and under the gallant Cleland played a noble part in retriev- 
ing the disaster of Killiecrankie. The main body of the grim 
religionists, thus reduced in aggressive strength, and no 
longer stimulated by persecution, watched in sullen acquies- 
cence the progress of events. They had done their work. 
Their injuries, their martyrdoms, their passionate protests, 
their inextinguishable vitality, their armed resistance to a 
"tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws," had been powerful agents 
in producing the Eevolution. But in the political settlement 
which followed it the remnant of the Covenanters and the 
Protesters had no part ; nor indeed were they fit to have any. 



174 WILLIAM CAR STARES. [Chap. 



On accepting the crown, William reconstructed the govern- 
ment of Scotland, which had been practically in abeyance 
since Perth had fled from Edinburgh, amidst the first riots 
of the [Revolution. The new appointments had a strongly 
Presbyterian bias. The zealous Crawford was made President 
of the Parliament ; Lord Melville, a staunch Presbyterian, 
sole Secretary of State ; Stair became President of the Court 
of Session; his son Sir John, Lord Advocate ; the Duke of 
Hamilton, whose church principles were vague, obtained the 
exalted office of Lord High Commissioner. Among the minor 
appointments was that of Carstares, as Scottish Chaplain 
to the King and Queen. To this office were annexed, for his 
life-time, the whole revenues of the Chapel Eoyal. The King 
assigned him apartments in Kensington Palace, and " inti- 
mated to him that he required his constant attendance upon 
his person."* 

The condition of the Church in Scotland during the year 
1689 was anomalous. The representatives of the nation, first 
in the Convention, had voted its established form of govern- 
ment an intolerable grievance, and next, when assembled in 
legal Parliament, had by a formal Actj abolished that pre- 
latic form. But nothing had been substituted for it. Prelacy 
was overthrown ; but Presbytery was not set up. The Church, 
without any rulers of its own, was entirely at the mercy of 
the State. The State's first exercise of authority was to order 
all ministers, officiating either in parish churches or in the 
meeting-houses of the indulged, to pray for William and 
Mary ; and a commission, which sat from the dissolution of 
the Convention till the meeting of the Parliament, was em- 
powered to eject those who disobeyed this order. After the 
meeting of Parliament the same power was assumed by the 
Privy Council, who, on the report of any parishioner, inquired 
into the minister's disobedience, and on finding it proved, 
deposed him, and obliged him to quit his manse and glebe 
within six months. About 300, chiefly in the southern, 

* McCormick, p. 38. Graham Dunlop MSS. 
f 22nd of July, 1689. 



X.J EJECTION OF "CURATES" 175 

western, and midland districts, were thus evicted ; but in the 
northern retreats of Episcopacy and Jacobitism, few could 
be laid hold of, although Lord Crawford laboured zealously to 
purge out the adherents of the late king. The bishops did 
not venture to claim their former seats in the Parliament 
House. The " Kirk invisible " did not emerge from its 
hiding to raise a voice in its own behalf; and an appeal 
to Parliament, from some of the clergy of Aberdeen, plead- 
ing for the convocation of a national synod, was earnestly 
opposed by the Presbyterians, and rejected, although sup- 
ported by the Duke of Hamilton. An attempt was made 
to procure the re-establishment of Presbytery on the ruins 
of the overturned Episcopate, but it was defeated ; and 
the Parliament of 1689 separated without having sanctioned 
any church establishment. The work of demolition had 
gone far enough; but that of reconstruction was not even 
begun.* 

The ecclesiastical elements capable of re-arrangement and 
re-distribution were those within, and those without, the late 
establishment. The clergy of the Church at the Restoration 
numbered rather more than 900. Of these about 350 were 
ejected for non-conformity on the establishment of Episco- 
pacy. Their places were filled with the men whom Burnet 
describes as so unworthy of the clerical office. About eighty 
of the established clergy, along with Laurence Charteris, were 
turned out for refusing the rigid test of 1681. Their places 
again were filled up ; in all likelihood with inferior men. At 
the Kevolution about 300 were '"'rabbled " out of their parishes ; 
and after the Eevolution, as many more were removed on re- 
fusing to pray for the new King and Queen ; leaving less than 
500 actually in their parishes. Outside the former establish- 
ment, were ranged such of the clergy deprived in 1681 as 
remained in Scotland, and about sixty who still survived 
of those "outed" in 1662. Besides these, there were a few 
irregular preachers, who had skulked with the Hill-men, or 

* Dalrymple, part ii. book hi. Burton (from 1688), vol. i. chap. ii. and 
chap. t. Grab, p. 299, et seq. Cunningham, &c. 



176 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

led a precarious life from town to town, during the days of 
persecution.* 

The late establishment, in its ritual and internal order, 
had little or nothing resembling the features of the Episcopal 
Church, as now existing in Scotland. It was episcopal in 
government, but no more. It had no liturgy. Scotland had 
lost this noble possession. The first liturgy used in the 
Eeformed Church was that of Edward VI. It was superseded 
by the ' Book of Geneva/ as modified by Knox,| which re- 
mained in force till about the date of the Westminster 
Assembly. It then began to fall into gradual disuse. ' Laud's 
Liturgy/ which provoked the legendary cutty stool of Jenny 
G-eddes and the civil war, never was accepted in Scotland, 
and was formally abjured by the General Assembly of 1638. 
At that time Henderson, Baillie, and the leaders of the Church 
were equally hostile to the liturgy of Laud, and to the Puri- 
tanic and Brownist innovations, which discarded liturgical 
forms altogether. These innovations, with their malign ten- 
dencies, however, gained strength as the civil war went on, 
and, finding high favour with the Protesters, became pre- 
dominant influences during the time of the Commonwealth.^ 
At the Restoration, that opposition to the churchly usages 
common to the Scotch Church and all the Eeformed churches, 
which had vexed the soul of Henderson, § had made such way 
that read prayers were unknown, and even the Lord's Prayer, 
the use of the Gloria Patri and of the Creed, and private 
devotion on entering churches, were discountenanced by the 
Established clergy. || 

* Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 127. Burton (from 1688), vol. i. chap. v. Sage's 
' Fundamental Charter of Presbytery,' Preface. Grub, vol. iii. p. 305. 

f Knox's ' History,' book i. Caldewood, vol. ii. p. 284. 

$ For a condensed account of the liturgical history of the Church, see 
Mr. Sprott's ' Introduction to the Book of Common Order.' 

§ Baillie, vol. i. p. 249. 

|| " All the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland made use of the Christian 
forms of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Doxology, until Oliver's army in- 
vaded Scotland, and the independent chaplains in that army thought their 
own dispensation was above that of Geneva. Upon this, such of the 



X.] EPISCOPACY OF 1688. 177 

Under the bishops, the only liturgical effort that was made 
was directed, and with but partial success, to the restoration or 
preservation of those few bare usages, which the sound Pres- 
byterians of the prior generation had, in vain, tried to protect 
from the self-sufficient disrespect and condemnation of the 
disorderly party. "The Covenanters of 1638 had a liturgy, 
and the Episcopalians of Charles ll.'s reign had none."* In 
the subordinate government of the Church, the divergence 
from the Episcopal model was as wide as in the matter of 
ritual. The "curate" was aided in the discipline and rule 
of his parish, as the Presbyterian minister had been, by a 
kirk session. Nay, King Charles II., moved by a pious ad- 
miration of the kirk session, as an ecclesiastical institution, 
issued in 1681 a proclamation empowering the curates to 
select "elders" in their respective parishes, and. ordering 
those so selected to accept the office within fifteen days, 
"under the pain of rebellion."! The presbytery too existed. 
as a legal church court, and exercised some of its ordinary 
powers, such as examination of the fitness of presentees' to 
benefices.J The difference, indeed, between the Church with 



Presbyterians as would recommend themselves to the usurper, and such 
as had his ear, forbore those forms in the public worship, and by degrees 
they fell into desuetude." ' Apology for the Clergy of Scotland/ London, 
1693, p, 45. 

* Hill Burton, vol. vii. p. 478. 

f TVodrow, vol. iv. p. 178. See also ' Introduction to the Directory,' 
by Rev. T. Leishman, D.D. (Blackwood, 1868). 

t ' Apology for the Clergy/ p. 16. In Moodie's • Present State of Scot- 
land ' (1682), the writer, a strong Episcopalian, gives many interesting 
details upon the government of the Church during the enforced Episcopacy, 
which show how slight the internal distinction was between Presbytery 
and Episcopacy. He describes the Kirk Session, as it might be described 
now, as being " in every parish," and consisting of the " chief and most 
grave men of the parish, who are called elders and deacons," whose functions 
he defines as the strictest Presbyterian might. The Presbytery comes next, 
and his description would suit any presbytery now in Scotland, excepting 
his statement that the moderator is chosen by the bishop; and that the 
candidates for orders are, after examination, returned to the bishop for 
ordination, instead of being ordained by the Presbyters themselves. He 

N 



178 WILLIAM CAR STARES. [Chap. 

bishops, and the Church without them, was so slight, and was 
embodied so entirely in the office of the bishops themselves, 
that it becomes the most striking illustration of the utter 
offensiveness of their office, and their persons, to the mass of 
the nation. Except that they held certain dignities, exercised 
a very slender spiritual authority over certain districts called 
" dioceses," and had seats in Parliament, the existence of the 
bishops would hardly have been obvious to their fellow- 
countrymen; had they not rendered themselves the instru- 
ments of an intolerable tyranny, and had not the maintenance 
of their order been made the excuse of its most inhuman 
excesses. They reaped as they had sown. Whatever dubiety 
might exist among the members of the Kevolution Parliament 
as to the re-establishment of Presbytery, there was none ex- 
pressed as to the abolition of an Episcopacy, which to them 
meant nothing greater or more reverend than the title and 
function of a few clergymen raised by the Court to a higher 
rank than that of others, but who found iu that rank no 
claim to general respect, which might qualify its challenge of 
popular hatred. The bishops were overthrown. The national 
instinct felt that this was a relief, and read in it a promise of 
freedom and peace. Troublers of Israel, no doubt, might 
succeed them, but whosoever should succeed them could not, 
in any event, be worse than the right reverend fathers in God 
had been. 

describes the synod as presided over by the bishop — the only apparent 
difference between synods in 1682 and in 1873. The General Assembly 
receives a great deal of abuse from him, and the model of the correct Epis- 
copal General Assembly is laid down : a supreme court composed of bishops, 
deans, arid two members from each presbytery (one of them to be the 
nominee of the bishop), and one member from each university : the calling 
of the Assembly to rest wholly with the crown ; nothing to be proposed 
in it but by the King or his Commissioner, and nothing done by it to be of 
force till ratified by the sovereign. Moodie gives a deplorable account of 
the social position of the " curates." " Men," says he (p. 153), " think it 
a stain to their blood to place their sons in that function; and women are 
aasamed to marry with any of them." " They are accounted by many as 
the dross and refuse of the nation." . 



XL] 179 



CHAPTER XL 

Dunlop — Montgoraerie'sPlot — Carstares in Ireland — Letters — Church affairs 
in Scotland — General Assembly — Ke-establishment of the old Church. 

There is a dearth of Carstares' letters during the progress 
of the Revolution and the year 1689. Most of those that 
are extant of a later date are addressed to his brother-in-law, 
William Dunlop, who had returned to Scotland after the 
Revolution. Dunlop had lived an active life in Carolina, 
where he had discharged, for a time, the somewhat incon- 
gruous functions of Presbyterian clergyman, and major of a 
regiment of the provincial militia. On his return to Scot- 
land, he had the choice of becoming minister either of Ochil- 
tree or of his father's old parish of Paisley ; but through his 
brother-in-law's influence he obtained preferment to the 
higher office of Principal of the University of Glasgow, to which 
he was appointed by the King in November 1690.* Visitors, 
with Lord Crawford at their head, were appointed in that year 
to " purge " the universities, by exacting from the professors 
oaths of allegiance to the new sovereigns and to the Confes- 
sion of Faith. Several vacancies were caused by the removal 
of those who refused to take the oaths ; in some cases their 
successors were not men of conspicuous ability, and the 
Episcopal pamphleteers made merry with especial glee over 
the dog Latin of Gilbert Rule, who took the place of the 
learned Dr. Munro, as head of the University of Edinburgh.! 

* Graham Dunlop MSS. 

f ' The Spirit of Calumny and Slander Examined, &c.,' London, 1693. 
' An Apology for the Clergy of Scotland,' London, 1693. Rule is accused 
of having spoken of " guiltus idolatries;" of having said of a lost bunch 
of keys, " Nescio quid factum est de iis ; habui mox ;" and of other equally 
heinous transgressions. 

N 2 



180 WILLIAM CAESTABES. [Chap. 

Dunlop's appointment, however, in room of Dr. Fall, was 
open to no reproach. His ability and his scholarship were 
alike above challenge. It was a great satisfaction to Carstares 
to have his sister and her husband pleasantly settled in 
Glasgow ; and he knew that in Dunlop he had a confidant 
with whom he could freely and safely communicate on eccle- 
siastical affairs, and on whom he could rely as an able coad- 
jutor in directing the general policy of the Church. King 
William considered himself under particular obligations to 
Dunlop, for the part he took in unravelling the Montgomerie 
Plot. This conspiracy originated with a knot of disappointed 
politicians, who went by the name of " The Club," and who, 
having failed in the scramble for places alter the Kevolution, 
grew seditious, and at last opened a correspondence with the 
Jacobites, and intrigued for the restoration of King James. 
Sir James Montgomerie, of Skelmorlie, w T as their leader. 
One of his confederates was the Lord Eoss. The old schemer 
Ferguson, and Neville Payne, who was to suffer bitterly for 
his share in it, were in the conspiracy. Ross either found 
his courage fail, or his conscience trouble him. He sent 
for Dunlop, and unbosomed himself to him,* and Dunlop, 
with his approval, conveyed intelligence of the plot to 
Lord Melville. From the following letter it may be in- 
ferred that before Boss's confession, Dunlop had been able to 

* Lord Macaulay (ch. xvi.) lias given an account of Dunlop's relations 
to Ross, and of the conduct of both, which is full of absurd rhetorical 
exaggerations. A reference to the only authorities he quotes (Balcarres, 
and Leven and Melville Papers, ' Notes of Boss's Confession ') is enough to 
show the amount of imaginative dressing he has given to the simple facts. 
Here is the narrative of Balcarres, a strong Jacobite partisan, Lord Macaulay's 
sole authority for this part of his story. "He sent for one Mr. Dunlop, a 
fanatick minister, and revealed all he knew to him, and also told him that 
he was under great troubles of conscience, and desired his prayers to enable 
him to open his heart to him. After long prayers and many sighs and 
tears, he told him all he knew ; God was thanked, as being the effect, Mr. 
Dunlop's prayers being heard. . . . Mr. D. (according to the custom of 
his profession) made no secret of his confession." Here is Lord Macaulay's 
amplification. " He pretended to be greatly troubled in mind, sent for a 
celebra/^d Presbyterian minister, named Dunlop, and bemoaned himself 



XL] MONTGOMERIE PLOT. 181 



send Carstares some information bearing on this intrigue, as 

its date is prior to that at which the general disclosure was 

made. 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" I had jour surprising letter which His Majesty hath considered, 
and looks upon it as a business of moment, and is very desirous to 
know further particulars of it, as what may be of concern to his 
affairs. He is willing to give a full indemnity to particular persons, 
but is not as yet so clear as to a general one. You have done 
good service to your country, and a good King, who is very willing 
and desirous we should be happy. He is sensible that the Presby- 
terians of that kingdom are his best friends, and will, I doubt not, 

treat them as such. ... I hope to be with you ere long 

Pray excuse me to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Law, with such other 
ministers of Edinburgh as you shall think fit, that I did not see 
them when I was last down, nor did not acquaint them with my 
journey, first nor last, for both were a surprisal to myself, and I 
was not master of my time. I hope that they will consider I am, 
in a manner, His Majesty's domestic servant, and therefore in dif- 
ferent circumstances from what the rest of the brethren of the 
Presbytery are ; but you may show them that as (to say no more) 
the interest suffered no loss by my last journey,* so it shall be my 
endeavour that it sustain no prejudice by this. . . Adieu. May 
14, '90." 

On the 4th of June the King set out on his expedition to 
Ireland. Carstares accompanied him to Highlake, near 
Chester, whence he writes a hurried line to Dunlop to let 

piteously. ' There is a load on my conscience : there is a secret which I 
know that I ought to disclose : but I cannot bring myself to do it.' Dunlop 
prayed long and fervently. Eoss groaned and wept ; at last it seemed that 
heaven had been stormed by the violence of supplication; the truth came 
out, and many lies with it. The divine and the penitent then returned 
thanks together. . . . Dunlop was in the meantime magnifying, wherever 
he went, the divine goodness which had by so humble an instrument as 
himself brought a noble person back to the right path." 



* The "last journey" had probably been early in this year. "By all 
means," writes Stair to Lord Melville in January, " bring down Mr. Car- 
stares with you, whose prudence may be of much use." Lord Melville 
came to Edinburgh soon after as Lord High Commissioner, Graham 
Dunlop MSS. 



182 WILLIAM CAR ST ABES. [Chap. 

him know that the King cannot see his friend Lord Ross, 
but that he allows him to go to London and make what 
terms he can with the Queen, who is acting as Eegent in 
her husband's absence. Ross accordingly, after some dubiety 
and delay, went to London to plead his cause with Mary,* 
somewhat, it should appear, to Melville's annoyance, who 
wished, if it were possible, to get Montgomerie, rather than 
Ross, safe out of the scrape. " I am under no particular 
engagement to Ross," he writes to the Queen. " If we have 
any, it's from the King himself by Mr. Carstares."t Mary 
made a searching inquiry into the conspiracy, iu the course 
of which Ross was kept for a time in the Tower. The in- 
quiry revealed a mass of treachery and intrigue, involving 
more or less directly not a few notable partisans of Presby- 
tery and of Episcopacy, of William and of James. No one, 
however, was brought to trial for it. Montgomerie went 
abroad ; Ross, after a time, gained the confidence of William, 
and was permitted to re-enter the public service. The con- 
spiracy would have collapsed, without leaving any reproach 
of severity upon the government, had not Neville Payne (an 
English squire, who had retired to Scotland to be out of the 
way of the law of England) been seized, and brutally tortured 
with boot and thumbkin, in order to extract from him what 
he knew of the secrets of the plot. J 

From Highlake, Carstares — charged by William and Port- 
land (to whom the King had entrusted the general superin- 
tendence of Scotch affairs) with messages for Melville, who 
had superseded Hamilton as Lord Lligh Commissioner § — 

* It is to Eoss probably that Mary refers in a letter to William of the 
8th of July, when she says, " This evening there has been a person with 
me, from whom you heard at Chester, and whom you there ordered to come 
to me, as he says." See Burnet's ' Memorial of Mary,' Appendix, p. xiii. 

f Leven and Melville Papers, p. 493. 

% Payne was the last person ever tortured for political causes in Scotland. 
His case was as discreditable to the government of William as that of 
Carstares was to the government of Charles. William signed the order for 
his torture. Burton, vol. i. p. 85. 

§ Leven and Melville Papers, p. 442. 



XL] CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND. 183 



came down to Edinburgh. There he appears to have been 
for some time busied in the expiscation of the various 
machinations, which had again exercised the unscrupulous 
activities of his old acquaintance Ferguson, and had engaged, 
in a treacherous correspondence with King James, one of the 
very commissioners who had conveyed the offer of his Scottish 
crown to King William.* He writes from Edinburgh on 
the 23rd of June : " We have been, of late, much alarmed 
here with the discovery of a conspiracy against their Majes- 
ties' government, in which persons of different qualities and 
interests are concerned. The thing is certain, tho' legal 
proofs cannot yet be got." Again he writes to a friend at 
Court on the 13th of July : "I was surprised to hear of the 
confinement of my Lord Eoss, because I was informed he 
had fully satisfied the Queen, which if he have not done, I 
shall not presume to speak one word for him ; but, Sir, if I 
could acquaint you at this distance how much my reputation 
is concerned in his safety, if he be not guilty of any new con- 
spiracy, or concealment of any knowledge he may have had 
of former plots (in neither of which case I will offer to own 
him), you would not blame me for being concerned for 

him."t 

Early in August he travelled by Chester and Holyhead to 
join the King in Ireland. William had won the battle of 
the Boyne, entered Dublin, taken Waterford, and begun the 
siege of Limerick. 

" This place gives no news," writes Carstares to Dunlop on 
the 22nd of August, from the camp before Limerick, " but 
of hot work at this siege, which advanceth apace. We did 
upon Wednesday last take a fort that was near to the walls. 
The enemy made a brisk sally with foot and horse, but were 
quickly beat back. We are, this day, firing hard with great 
guns, and have beat down one of their towers upon the wall, 
and are in a fair way of making such a breach as shall capa- 
citate our men to make an assault. The King is well and 
hearty. I thank you, dear brother, for your care of my 
* Lcven and Melville Papers, p. 478. t Ibid. p. 469. 



184 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

concerns. I hope Mr. Bruce will get for me all the money 
lie can; I shall stand in need of a bill shortly. My dear 
love to my sisters, and Sarah in particular, with Sandie and 
Johnie. I am, I bless God, very well, — it is pleasant in a 
tent at this season. I believe you wish yourself with me. I 
hope you shall, in God's goodness, have comfortable news 
from us ere long. 23 August. — I cannot leave this till I 
have an opportunity of discoursing at some length with the 
King, which the heat of the siege doth not yet allow of. 
. . . We are bombing the town." 

The siege of Limerick had to be raised, and the King 

returned early in September to England. " The King hath 

been so busied with a siege, which a sudden change of weather 

hath made unsuccessful," Oarstares writes from Waterford on 

the 2nd of September, " that no affairs could be spoken of, 

and therefore the business of the Universities is not yet done. 

. . . We only wait a fair wind." He reached London on the 

10th of September, along with the King, who had been enter" 

tained on the road from Bristol by the Dukes of Beaufort 

and Somerset, and who was received in his capital with many 

demonstrations of rejoicing. Carstares writes, thence, on the 

4th of October, to Dunlop, who must have been applying to 

him on behalf of some delinquent : " I was surprised with 

your enclosed. Can you think that it is fit to direct such 

letters to me, or that I will deliver them ? I have nothing 

to do with any against whom my master hath any displeasure. 

I shall do what is just and loyal and no more. ... I am not 

certain if I shall be down against the Assembly, or some 

time after, and therefore I would have you employing my 

man as your servant, till you hear from me, and I shall be 

at the expence. Pray let me hear particularly from you, 

and endeavour that things be moderately managed at the 

Assembly." Again, on the 10th : " Dear Brother, — I leave 

you to my dear friend Mr. Gab. Cunningham* for news and 

* One of the pre-Restoration ministers, of the moderate party. He was 
minister of Dunlop, and accepted the Indulgence. His biographer, in 
AVodrow's ' Analecta' (vol. iii. p. 118), says, "He was great with all sort 



XI.] CHURCH SETTLEMENT. 185 

my thoughts of things ; only I must desire that your utmost 
endeavours may be used for having a good issue put to this 
Assembly. If they enter upon possession, and do some things 
absolutely necessary for the settlement, I think it is enough 
at this time, and an adjournment for some months may be 
expedient. I think all the pains I have been at, and the 
success that in some small measure I have had, might at least 
be acknowledged by some of the Ministry, and a letter wrote 
to me to continue my endeavours ; but this is to yourself, as 
a confidant. Adieu, and love to sisters and cousins. Dear 
brother, yours sincerely, L." * 

These references to the Assembly need the illustration of 
a slight sketch of the position of ecclesiastical affairs, in 
Scotland, in this autumn of 1690. The Parliament had as- 
sembled in April. It was understood that the settlement of 
the Church could not be again postponed ; and the friends of 
peace and order were uneasy, lest the crisis should only open 
the way for new ecclesiastical contentions. The Viscount 
Tarbat, who, despite the contumelious epithets of Dundee, t 
bore himself, in these dubious days, more like a wise and 
judicious statesman than almost any other politician of the 
time, had written months before to Melville : " Pray consider 
the matter of the Church, with such an eye as impartially 
to consider not only what will satisfy one party, but the 
whole." He had followed this up with a weighty memorial, 
in which he sketched a plan of comprehension, that would 
have kept in the establishment all ministers well affected to 



of ministers, indulged and not indulged ; all had a great veneration for 
him. ... He thought I was too long in preaching, and he told me what 
the great and worthy Mr. John Livingstone said anent long preaching, 
'that we that were ministers endeavoured sometime to preach the Spirit of 
God into people ; and then by our long preaching, ere ever we were aware, 
we preached the Spirit of God again out of people.' Mr. Livingstone 
hardly exceeded half an hour at a time." 



* Why L., I don't know ; but it is so in the MS. 
f See ante, p. 171. 



186 WILLIAM CAR ST ABES. [Chap, 



the government, and have reconciled moderate Episcopalians 
to Presbytery, and moderate Presbyterians to Episcopacy, by 
the adoption of Leighton's device of perpetual moderators.* 
Crawford, on the other hand, would hear of nothing but 
Presbytery pure and simple, neither "clogged" nor " re- 
stricted," and the Church " purged " from all leaven of 
Prelacy.f The King's own leaning was in favour of com- 
prehensive, and reconciling measures, as he had, anew and 
recently, proved by his energetic promotion of the Toleration 
Act, which had passed in England, and of the Comprehen- 
sion Bill, which, to his chagrin, had been defeated by the 
jealous bigotry of the Anglican clergy.^ But large principles 
of charity and tolerance had to yield precedence to the prac- 
tical exigencies of Scotch politics. Week by week the 
Episcopal ministers — even those who had stayed in their 
churches on the condition of allegiance to King William — 
grew more seditious.§ They " preached King James more 
than Christ," and lent all their influence to the cause of 
Jacobite stratagem and plot. || The possibility of a broadly 
conciliatory and comprehensive settlement, which would have 
pleased a moderate like Tarbat, decreased as loyalty to the 
elected King became more and more the distinctive mark of 
the staunch Presbyterians, of whom Crawford was the per- 
fervid type. As in the days of the " tulchan " bishops of 
James VI.; of the first enthusiasm of the Solemn League 
and Covenant; and of the Kestoration, political considera- 
tions ruled the destinies of the Church. Her own voice was 
not consulted. Had a General Assembly been invited to 
decide how the Church was to be governed, the vote of the 
majority would undoubtedly have declared for Episcopacy; and 
therefore Parliament took care to put that question out of 
court before a General Assembly should get leave to sit, and 

# Leven and Melville Papers, pp. 108 and 125. 

f Ibid. pp. 140, 145, 172. 

X Burnet, vol. iv. pp. 16-21. 

§ Leven and Melville Papers, p. 140. 

|| General Mackay's 'Memoirs,' pp. 77, 210. 



XI.] PRESBYTERY RE-ESTABLISHED. 187 

took care also to summon such an Assembly as should be 
certain never to recall that question. 

The "Bevolution Settlement" was, of all conceivable settle- 
ments, the most " Erastian." Parliament had broken down 
Presbytery, and set up Episcopacy in 1662. Parliament broke 
down Episcopacy, and set up Presbytery in 1689 and 1690. 
The one Parliament, no doubt, was but a servile junta ; the 
other was a fairly representative body. But in neither case was 
the Church, whose fate was decreed, a party to the procedure. 
The State dealt with her as its obedient handmaid. It cannot 
be disputed that the cause of truth and freedom gained by 
this absolute conduct on the part of the State, and by its 
refusal to concede an independent and autonomous jurisdic- 
tion to the Church. Had the clergy, who claimed to represent 
the Church, been allowed to settle her affairs, the social and 
political life of the nation would have been likely to relapse 
into serfdom and corruption. It said little for the clergy, 
who had enjoyed an absolute predominance for twenty-eight 
years, that the general instinct should have recoiled from 
entrusting them with new or further power. But so it was. 
Men felt that it was safer for the common weal, that the 
reason and conscience of the people should speak through 
Parliament, than that the clergy should get their own way in 
a church court. 

The first step towards the reconstitution of the Presby- 
terian establishment was the abolition of the Act of 1669, 
which had made the King supreme over all persons, and in 
all causes, civil and ecclesiastical. The next was to restore 
the surviving ministers, in number about sixty, who had 
been ejected for not conforming to Episcopacy after the 
Bestoration. Then came the last and decisive measure, which 
established the Church on the basis of the Confession of 
Faith, and of the Presbyterian polity as defined and secured 
by the Act of 1592, which, through all vicissitudes, the 
Constitutional Presbyterians of Scotland had regarded as the 
unabrogated and fundamental Magna Charta of the Church. 
This voluminous measure— which revived the Act of 1592, 



188 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 



ratified the Westminster Confession, repealed a long list of 
laws in favour of Episcopacy, legalised tbe illegal " rabblings " 
of tbe curates, vested the government of the Church in the 
survivors of the ejected ministers of 1661, and appointed a 
meeting of the General Assembly — was drafted by the wily 
pen of James Steuart,* and submitted to the King for his 
revision. 

William had never wavered in his Scotch Church policy. 
He had always put the principles of toleration above 
theories of ecclesiastical government, and had maintained 
an impartial attitude between the rival parties. " Do not," 
said Carstares, in a paper addressed to the King, " do not 
afford the smallest suspicion to either party, whether in 
Church or State, that your Majesty is so far engrossed or 
monopolized by the other, as to adopt those private animosi- 
ties or resentments, with which they are inflamed against 
each other." t The King acted on the advice. "If you 
find that that interest is strongest which is for restoring the 
government of the Church in the Presbyterian way, you 
shall endeavour to have it, with provision that the rules of 
discipline may be adjusted, and all occasion of complaint for 
rigour taken away." These were William's " instructions " 
for the Convention in March 16894 " You are to pass one 
or more Acts, as the Parliament shall agree to," are his 
orders to Melville in February 1690, "for settling Church 
government, conform to the former instruction given there- 
anent."§ And now that the re- establishment of Presbytery 
was inevitable, he tried so to liberalise the measure as to 
render it not unwelcome to all but the bigots on either side 
. who preferred their own dogmas and their own way to the 
general peace and good of Church and State. 

On receiving the draft of the proposed Act, William sent 
for Car-tares, and went over it with him, clause by clause ; 

* Coltness Collections, p. 94. 
f McCormick, p. 40. 
% Leven and Melville Papers, p. 2. 
§ Ibid. p. 414. 



XI.J KING'S REMARKS OX ACT Or 1G90. 189 

after which he dictated tu him the result of their consultation 
in a paper of "Remarks," which here follow: they were 
sent down to Lord Melville, and the Act \\as modified in 
conformity with them : — 

" lmo. Whereas in the draught it is said, that the church of Scot- 
land was reformed from popery hy presbyters, without prelacy, his 
Majesty thinks, that, though this matter of fact may he true, which 
he doth not controvert ; yet, it being contradicted by some, who 
speak of a power that superintendants had in the beginning of the 
reformation, which was like to that which bishops had afterwards, 
it were better it were otherwise expressed. 

" 2do. Whereas it is said, their Majesties do ratify the presby- 
terian church government to be the only government of Christ's 
church in this kingdom, his Majesty desires it may be expressed 
otherwise, thus, To be the government of the church in this king- 
dom established by law. 

" 3tio. Whereas it is said, that the government is to be exercised 
by sound presbyterians, and such as shall hereafter be owned by 
presbyterian judicatories as such, his Majesty thinks that the rule 
is too general, depending as to its particular determination upon 
particular men's opinion ; and therefore he desires that what is said 
to be the meaning of the rule, in the reasons that were sent alon» 
with the act, may be expressed in the act itself, viz. That such as 
subscribe the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, and are willing 
to submit to the government of the church, being sober in their 
lives, sound in their doctrine, and qualified with gifts for the 
ministry, shall be admitted to the government. 

" 4to. Whereas it is desired to be enacted, that the general meeting 
of the ministers do appoint visitors for purging the church &c. 
his Majesty thinks fit, that, for answering the objections that are 
proposed against this method in the reasons sent up to him along 
with the act, that what in these reasons is expressed by may be, as 
to the concern of his privy-council in that matter, and the present- 
ing of these visitors to the commissioner, that he may see they are 
moderate men, be plainly expressed in the act itself, that it should 
be, &c. 

" 5to. As to what concerns the meeting of synods and general 
assemblies, his Majesty is willing that it should be enacted, that 
they meet at such and such times of the year, and so often as shall 
be judged necessary, provided always that they apply to him or the 



190 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap 

privy-council to know if there be any inconvenience as to public 
affairs in their meetings at such times, and have his approbation 
accordingly, 

" 6to. Whereas it is desired to be enacted, that the parishes of 
those thrust out by the people in the beginning of this revolution, 
be declared vacant, upon this reason, because they were put upon 
congregations without their consent, his Majesty desires it may be 
expressed in such a manner, as is perfectly consistent with the 
rights of patrons, which he hath the more reason to insist upon, 
that, in the paper sent up along with the act, it seems to be 
acknowledged that this procedure is extraordinary, and, there- 
fore, ought not to be drawn into consequence. 

" I A. B. do sincerely declare and promise, that I will own and 
submit to, and peaceably live under, the present government of the 
church, as it is by law established in this kingdom, and that I will 
heartily concur w r ith and under it for the suppressing of vice and 
wickedness, the promoting of piety, and the purging the church of 
all erroneous and scandalous ministers. 

" It is his Majesty's pleasure, that such as shall declare, as is 
above written, and assent and consent to the Confession of Faith 
now confirmed by act of parliament, as the standard of the pro- 
testant religion in that kingdom, shall be reputed sound and 
orthodox ministers. 

"It is his Majesty's pleasure too, that those, who do not own 
and yield submission to the present church government in Scot- 
land, shall have the like indulgence that the presbyterians have in 
England. 

" His Majesty's desire to have what he grants to the church of 
Scotland to be lasting, and not temporary, makes him incline to 
have the above mentioned amendments made upon the act." 

" The above remarks " (says McCormick) " were sent down to 
the Earl of Melville, along with a letter from the King. The 
original is in the possession of the Eight Honourable the Earl of 
Leven, and is thus entitled : — 

" ' Eemarks upon the Act for settling Church Government, with 
the King's Letter, May 22, 1690, whereby it will appear, Instruc- 
tions were exactly observed, in so far as was possible, without 
hazarding the Euin of the Kingdom.' 

" There is only one particular in which the paper in my Lord 
Leven's custody differs from that which is in the hands of the 
publisher, and it is remarkable, viz. after the 6th remark, in the 



XL] HAMILTON'S OPPOSITION. 191 

copy sent down to Lord Melville, it runs thus : ' His Majesty's 
resolution to be candid in what he does, and his desire that what is 
granted by him to the church may not be uneasy to him afterwards, 
incline him to have the above mentioned amendments in the act.' 

" Then follows the letter. {Supra scribitur) W. R. 

" ' Eight trusty, and right entirely beloved cousin and counsellor, 
We greet you well. We have considered the act anent church- 
government, and have returned the same, with the alterations we 
have thought proper should be made upon it ; however, we leave 
you some latitude, which we wish you would use with as much 
caution as you can, and in the way will be most for our service. 
Given under our royal hand, at our court at Kensington, the 2d 
of May 1690, and of our reign the second year. W. R.' "* 

This famous Act was not passed without some difficulty 
and opposition.! When the House was about to consider the 
article which ratified the Confession of Faith, the Duke of 
Hamilton moved that the Confession itself " be read all over 
with a distinct and audible voice." The Laird of Craignish, 
either in grim joke or preternatural earnest, proposed that 
this should be done on the Lord's day, if done at all. The 
Duke's motion was adopted, and the long Confession was read. 
When the reading was finished, it was proposed that the 
Catechism and the Directory for Public Worship should 
come next. But this was too much for the wearied senators ; 
the reading of the Confession was voted to be enough, and 
the Catechism and Directory were passed over, and so escaped 
embodiment in the Act. J At various points the Duke of 
Hamilton offered an opposition to the Bill, in the interests of 
a more indulgent treatment of the Episcopal ministers, which 
did not fail to rouse the suspicion of being dictated by resent- 
ment at Melville's preferment to the commissionership, quite 
as much as by real charity and liberality. At last, before the 
House divided on the article which, with undeniable injustice, 

* McCormick, p. 46. Leven and Melville Papers, p. 436. McCormick 
prints from the copy in Carstares' hand. The copy in the Leven and 
Melville Papers has a few verbal differences. 

f June 7, 1690. 

X ' Account of the late Establishment, &c.,' London, 1693, pp. 42-3. 



192 WILLIAM CABSTAREg, [Chap. 



proposed to confirm the ejections by the " rabble," the Duke's 
temper gave way. " The vote should stand," he cried, ' : ap- 
prove or not approve the deed of the rabble ;" and when the 
article had passed, "he was sorry," he said, "that he should 
ever have sat in a Scottish Parliament where such naked 
iniquity was established into a law ;" and, much in wrath, 
he marched out of the House, followed by several other 
members. As soon as he was gone it was proposed to pass 
the whole Act in cumulo. A voice was heard : "Fie ! make 
haste ! despatch, lest he return again, and create more trouble." 
It came from a Presbyterian minister, who had made his way 
into the House, and in the excitement of the moment called 
out to the members near him. The hint was taken. The 
whole Act was approven, and laid on the table to await the 
royal assent.* 

It erred, as the legislation of the Parliament of the Resto- 
ration had erred, in an assertion and an exercise of powers 
which, even though tempered by William's impartial toler- 
ance, were too harsh and absolute. The extreme measures 
of the Eestoration were sure to beget a reaction of like 
extremes, when the oppressed had gained their opportunity 
of becoming oppressors ; and the knowledge of the near 
danger of Jacobite plots, which might overthrow the still 
insecure fabric of the Eevolution, disposed William's Scottish 
supporters to be more jealous and rigid than their master. 

In one important respect, however, the settlement now 
legalised was a bolder step towards religious freedom than 
the Scots had taken since the days of James VI. While the 
" Confession " was adopted, without any critical examination, 
as a feasible doctrinal basis on which Presbyterian and Epis- 
copalian could both plant their teaching, the "Covenant," 
which had been at its beginning the enthusiastic vow and 
bond of a unanimous people, and afterwards the watchword 
of a hot fanaticism and the instrument of a coarse religious 
tyranny, was dropped altogether out of sight. It was well 
known that the King would never sanction a legal recognition 

# ' Account of the late Establishment, &c.,' London, 1693, p. 58, et seq. 



XL] PATRONAGE. 193 

of it. No voice was raised in Parliament on its behalf.* 
The stern Cameronian remnant might lament it, as the Jews 
lamented the broken walls of Zion ; but it faded hopelessly 
away, impotent and gloomy, like one of Ossian's ghosts. 
From that day to this it has had no authority in Scotland, 
and no living relation to the Church. 

The question of patronage had still to be adjusted ere the 
ecclesiastical legislation was complete. The King had been 
in great doubt as to this point. At one time he had written 
instructions that if the Parliament wished it, patronage was 
to be abolished.! Again, in his ' Kemarks ' he seemed to be 
chary of touching the rights of patrons. " The King, as to 
the settlement of Presbytery, seems only to stick at the 
patronages," writes Sir William Lockhart, in April 16904 
" He says it's the interest of the crown and the taking of 
men's property." Melville, however, urged by the more 
heady of the ministers, and nervous lest he should forfeit 
Presbyterian support, when Montgomerie was plotting and a 
French fleet hovering on the coast, resolved to assume the 
responsibility of sacrificing patronage. A plan was adopted 
which took a middle course between purely popular election 
and simple patronage ; and the envied power of presenting to 
benefices was conferred on the Protestant heritors, and the 
elders of the parishes. § This measure was distasteful to 
William. He had no faith in popular election, or any approx- 
imation to it. Like a lawyer, he regarded the right of 
patronage as property, and he knew that his meddling with 
it, even in Scotland, would alarm and irritate the English 
clergy and the English patrons. The zealous Presbyterians 
blamed Carstares for the King's reluctance to abolish this 
patrimonial right, which they deemed an ecclesiastical griev- 
ance. But, " on the other hand," says McCormick, " Car- 
stares in turn " blamed them " for asking more of King 

* Burton, from 1688 : vol. i. p. 199, et seq. 
f Leven and Melville Papers, p. 414. 
t Ibid. p. 430. 
§ See Burton, Grub, Cunningham. 



194 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

William when he was established upon the throne than a 
compliance with the articles in the Claim of Eight, which, 
without any mention of patronage, only complains of prelacy, 
or the superiority of any church officers above presbyters, as 
a grievance."* He proceeds to say that Carstares " knew that, 
from the Keformation down to the Revolution, in all the 
vicissitudes of church government, patronage had been the 
law of the land. He knew that by the Act of 1592, which has 
always been considered as the grand charter of Presbyterian 
government, patronages were incorporated with its very con- 
stitution. And he knew King William was too tender of his 
prerogative to allow any authority to the Act of Estates in 
1649, which had been expressly rescinded by an Act of Par- 
liament as a violation of the constitution. Besides, Mr. Car- 
stares was too well acquainted with the circumstances of the 
country, with the King's temper, and with the indiscreet zeal 
of some of his brethren the Presbyterians, not to foresee the 
danger of gratifying them in all their demands ; and he 
found himself obliged, in his applications to the King in 
their behalf, to make a just distinction betwixt what was 
essential to that form of church government, and what was 
absolutely distinct from it. Of this last kind he considered 
the article of patronage ; and, instead of advising the repeal 
of that law as beneficial to the Church, he was afraid that 
such a step might have a quite contrary tendency, and prove, 
in the end, prejudicial, not only to the King's interest, but to 
the Presbyterians themselves, by throwing more power into 
their hands than they knew how to use with moderation. 

" The clergy of that persuasion, having been deprived for 
near thirty years of the established livings, were then re- 
duced to a state of absolute dependence upon their hearers 
for their subsistence — a circumstance extremely unfavourable 
to the dignity of the ministerial character, by deterring men 
of spirit from entering into that profession, and by debasing 
the minds of those who do. Mr. Carstares, from the first 
establishment of Presbytery, dreaded the consequences which 
* McCormick, p. 48. 



XI.] PATRONAGE. 195 

might ensue from intrusting the whole government of the 
Church and the disposal of its benefices in the hands of a set 
of men who were tainted with all the prejudices of the people, 
and at the same time irritated by a sense of recent injuries. 
Whilst he advised, therefore, the establishment of Presbytery, 
he was of opinion that it ought to be of the most moderate 
kind, and so modelled as to admit of the assumption of such 
of the Episcopal clergy as took the oaths to government upon 
the mildest terms. This he foresaw would not be the case 
unless the rights of patrons were preserved as a check upon 
the clergy. 

" Although my Lord Melville did not differ, in his senti- 
ments upon these subjects, from Mr. Carstares,his situation was 
widely different. As the head of the Presbyterians in Scot- 
land, he saw that his whole credit and influence in adminis- 
tration depended upon that party's maintaining the superiority 
which it had acquired, and found himself obliged to yield to 
some of their demands in church matters which he did not 
approve. 

" The Presbyterians, before the Eevolution, as well as the 
dissenters from every legal establishment, had been in use to 
choose their own clergy, because they paid them for their 
labours out of their own pockets. As this was a privilege 
upon which they put a very high value, it was natural for 
the body of the people to wish to retain the election of their 
spiritual teachers, even when freed from the burden of their 
maintenance. They were encouraged to make this demand 
by the concessions which had already been made to them by 
King William, and especially by his placing Lord Melville, 
their patron, at the head of administration in Scotland. And 
that nobleman found himself so situated that he must either 
comply, or break with them for ever. He chose the former, 
and gave the royal assent to the Act repealing patronage." 

It is difficult to determine how far William resented this 
concession. According to Burnet, he was highly offended 
with Melville ;* and certainly, either in anger, or in order to 

* Burnet, vol. iv. p. 110. 

o 2 



196 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

throw dust in the eyes of the English churchmen, he ap- 
peared to withdraw his favour from his Lord High Com- 
missioner ; and by-and-by he removed him from his office. 
Carstares, however, stood Melville's friend ; and the report, 
or vindication of his policy, which the latter laid before 
the King, bears notes and alterations in Carstares's hand- 
writing, which show that it had been submitted to his judicious 
revision.* 

The Assembly met on the 16th of October, for the first 
time since Cromwell's dragoons had interrupted its debates in 
July 1653. Carstares's friend, Gabriel Cunningham, took the 
chair until the Assembly should, in the usual way, choose its 
moderator. The moderator chosen was Hugh Kennedy, a 
member of the old Protesting party. The Assembly num- 
bered about one hundred and eighty members, clerical and 
lay. There were no representatives from the north, nor from 
any of the universities, except Edinburgh.! 

Lord Carmichael, as the King's Commissioner, delivered 
his Majesty's " gracious letter," in which it was not difficult 
to trace the cautious and kindly inspiration of Carstares. 
" A calm and peaceable procedure," wrote the King, " will be 
no less pleasing to us than it becometh you. We never could 
be of the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of 
true religion, nor do we intend that our authority shall ever 
be a tool to the irregular passions of any party. Moderation 
is what religion enjoins, neighbouring churches expect from 
you, and we recommend to you." J 

The recommendation was not unneeded. Of the sixty 
ministers who had been restored, and who sat in the Assembly, 
almost all were of the old " Protesting " party. The younger 
men, who sat beside them, were those who had either studied 
and been licensed among the exiles in Holland, or who had 

* Leven and Melville Papers, Preface. 

f 'Historical Relation.' Cunningham had not been, as Dr. Cunningham 
states (vol. ii. p. 288), moderator of the last Assembly, but of the last of 
the two preliminary " General Meetings " of Presbyterians, held in Edin- 
burgh before this Assembly. 

t < Acts of Assembly,' 1690. 



XI.] ASSEMBLY OF. 1690.1 197 

skulked in Scotland, exercising an irregular ministry under 
the ban of the law. The school of persecution is not one in 
which men readily learn generosity and tolerance. Upon 
the whole, however, the great principle of moderation was 
fairly observed. The high-flying claims and dogmas of the 
Covenant were quietly renounced in the Assembly, as they 
had been in the Parliament. The few remaining ministers 
of the Cameronians were allowed to relinquish their divisive 
fanaticism, and to come into the Church. The assertion of a 
jus divinum for Presbytery was foregone. All clergymen who 
should subscribe the Confession of Faith, and promise submis- 
sion to the Presbyterian government, were to be recognised 
as ministers, and allowed to remain in the Church. There can 
be no doubt that some external pressure was needed to insure 
this moderation. Carstares, who had come to Edinburgh with 
letters of instructions from the King, was in constant attend- 
ance at the Assembly, although he was not a member, restrain- 
ing the zeal of the fanatical, and strengthening the hands of 
the moderate. The anti-Episcopal fervour, which could not 
find sufficient vent in the acts of Assembly, discharged itself 
in frequent sermons in the churches of the town. " In general, 
I assure you," writes a keen Episcopal pamphleteer, " they 
were very nauseating to all rational persons ; for, except one 
or two preached by Mr. Carstares and Mr. Robert Wyllie, 
they were either miserably flat and dull, or else full of bitter 
zeal against the Episcopal party."* 

Before the Assembly rose, however, after a month's session, 
it intrusted its " commission " or committee of the whole 
House, with powers which were not likely to be used with 
as much discretion as its own. This commission, divided 
into two branches, was to visit the northern and the southern 
districts, to purge out (where purgation had not been already 
effected) " the insufficient, or scandalous, or erroneous, or 
supinely negligent," and to admit to ministerial communion 
those who, upon due trial, should be found " orthodox in 
doctrine, of competent abilities, of a godly, peaceable, and 
* ' Historical Relation.' 



198 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

loyal conversation, and who shall be judged faithful to God 
and to this government."* 

The course of this visitation brought the commission of 
divines and elders into dangerous proximity to the officers of 
the civil government, whose duty it was to exact the oaths 
of allegiance ; and the inquiry into character, conduct, and 
principles which it authorized, trenched closely on the domain 
of inquisition and petty tyranny. The visitors, it is to be 
feared, acted in many cases with harshness and illiberality. 
" The reforming of the Church," says Tarbat, " by the Camer- 
onian regiment can do no good ;"t and he prophesied that the 
'• hot commission " which, in the north, had occasionally to 
call in the military to enforce its behests, would do more to 
sow discord than to foster peace. " Fifty thousand of the 
nation care not for Episcopacy, who now, by the present 
courses taken, do hate Presbytery; and if Presbytery and 
peace be settled in Scotland without [unless] presbyters be 
hemmed in, the former ministers protected from the angry 
party's wrath, and churchmen kept to the ministerial func- 
tion, without extravaging on their fanciful jurisdiction, I am 
far mistaken.''^ Tarbat's auguries proved true. The com- 
mission went too zealously to work. They made, like earlier 
zealots, in some districts, " havoc of the Church." The King 
at last was obliged to interpose on behalf of the more humane 
and indulgent policy, to which he had personally been always 
faithful. 

But although, in carrying out the details of its formal 
reconstruction, the Church, as represented by its commis- 
sioners, might err in judgment and temper, the blame could 
not be laid on those, who defined and guaranteed the powers 
which were occasionally misused. No church could exist 
without a measure of self-government as large, at least, as 
that accorded to the new establishment ; and the State had 

* Assembly's letter to the King ; Leven and Melville Papers, p. 568 ; 
and ' Acts of Assembly.' 

t Leven and Melville Papers, p. 571. 
% Ibid. p. 586. 



XL] RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH. 199 

undeniably done what it could, to animate that self-govern- 
ment with a spirit as liberal and conciliatory, as was com- 
patible with the orderly reconstruction of the Church, and 
the perpetuity of the Eevolution settlement. The idea of 
Carstares (for his was the predominating influence which, in 
the last resort, moulded the councils of the State) was to 
re-establish, in a country where people for a hundred years 
" had gone mad "* over questions of ecclesiastical polity, 
that form of government which the Keformed Church had 
at first assumed, and which appeared, on the whole, to be 
the best for, and the most agreeable to, the larger part 
of the nation. He did not look at Prelacy, or Presbytery, 
through the mists of mediaeval superstition, but in the 
light of modern statesmanship and reason, believing that 
order to be the most divine, which did most to promote 
peace on earth and goodwill among men. He desired to 
include in the Church all who could be comprehended in an 
orthodox and loyal communion ; and, with this view, no 
renunciation of Episcopacy was demanded from those Epis- 
copal ministers, who should wish to abide in the national 
establishment. The only doctrinal symbol they were asked 
to accept was that " Confession of Faith " which, so far from 
being intolerable to Episcopalians, had been embodied in one 
of the oaths which they had readily taken in the days of 
Charles II. No rigid order of worship was laid down, against 
which a scrupulous conscience might have rebelled ; in this 
regard there was the amplest free lorn. The basis of the 
Church was essentially liberal; her door of entrance was 
wide; the policy designed for her was a policy of compre- 
hensive tolerance. This undeniably was the wise and gene- 
rous idea, of which the reality in some respects fell short. 
That it did so was in part, no doubt, owing to the fervour of 
the Presbyterians, but also, in no small degree, to the poli- 
tical and ecclesiastical position assumed by the Episcopalians. 
Politically they allied themselves, more and more exclusively, 
with Jacobitism. Ecclesiastically they became more and 
* See letter of Lord/Iarbat, Leven and Melville Papers, p. 586. 



200 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

more imbued with " High Church " principles. In each case 
they retrograded. The unreasoning and immoral absolutism 
of the Stuarts was political barbarism, when compared with 
the constitutional order and freedom of the Eevolution. The 
spirit of the Act of Uniformity, which, passing from Lam- 
beth to St. Andrews, had infected the ecclesiastical mind 
of the North, was narrow, vain, and worldly, when con- 
trasted with the broad and charitable instincts of the Anglican 
Church in the days which preceded the accession of the 
Stuarts. Hitherto, throughout all the conflicts of Presbytery 
and Prelacy, a hope had always survived that, eventually, 
the two opposing parties might somehow be amalgamated or 
reconciled. As the re-establishment of the Church pro- 
gressed, the most hopeful must have become unwillingly, 
but surely, convinced that the political and ecclesiastical 
estrangement of Scotch Presbyterian and Scotch Episcopalian 
had passed out of the reach of reconcilement. Even those 
Episcopalians who were received into the Church, or rather 
who were not driven out, were in the Church, but not of it. 
And outside the Church a body of prelatic separatists was 
gradually formed, with all their prelatic characteristics 
hardened by the resentful sense of ill-treatment, who foiled 
every attempt at comprehension. 



XIL] 201 



CHAPTER XII. 

Carstares's position, work, and influence — With the King in Flanders — 
Letters — Glencoe. 

It would be foreign to the purpose of this book, which de- 
signs to present the history of an individual — and not of a 
nation or a church — to enter upon the details of Scotch eccle- 
siastical affairs during the period when the Church was 
slowly and painfully settling down upon its new foundation. 
The details, indeed, can now hardly be the objects of very 
keen human sympathy. The mutual jealousies of Presby- 
terian and Episcopalian, the harshness of the one, the shifti- 
ness of the other, occupy the foreground so noisily and 
obtrusively, and cross each other in such involved movement, 
that one is apt to watch them rather with a sense of wearied 
confusion, than of hearty interest. The scene is ennobled by 
none of the heroic lights and shadows of Knox's conflict with 
the ancient church. Its tameness is not stirred by any of 
the rough but hardy independence of Andrew Melville's 
wrestlings with King James. It lacks alike the wild fire of 
the early Covenant, and the rich lustre of the varied learn- 
ing and sound churchmanship, which gave weight to the 
counsels, and dignity to the contests, of Henderson and 
Baillie. 

Many of the least comely features of modern Scottish Pres- 
byterianism began, at this time, to emerge into a prominence 
which they had never before attained ; some of them, indeed, 
had never before existed. The Puritanic and Brownist leaven, 
which had tainted the church principles and practices of the 
old Protesters, had lost none of its infection during the years 
of persecution. There had been too free a growth of thai 



202 WILLIAM CAR ST ABU S. [Chap. 

type of piety, at once fervid in feeling and undisciplined in 
temper, of which we see a conspicuous illustration in Ruther- 
ford. Those points of external difference, which separated the 
persecutors from the persecuted, had been magnified into dis- 
torted proportions. The old sense of the solemnity of worship 
had lost its force amidst the excitements of the conventicle, 
and under the ministrations of the fanatical and unlearned. 
That deterioration in the order and propriety of divine service ; 
which, for several generations since, has exposed the rites of 
Scottish worshippers to the reproach of coarse familiarity and 
meagre slovenliness, had begun. The infrequent communion, 
and the preposterous preparatives and accompaniments of the 
sacred celebration, had come into vogue. In fact, the Church 
as restored in 1690, ill bore comparison with the Church as 
restored in 1638. Those old men who remembered the glory 
of the earlier temple, might well have wept, like Ezra's exiles, 
as they watched the upbuilding of the later, and marked how 
much more many of those who sought to direct it, were led 
by political tact and secular wisdom, than by the gentle spirit 
of Christian tolerance, and the humanising reverence for 
catholic usage and tradition.* In such a period, a man like 
Carstares, un impassioned, sagacious, just, charitable, liberal, 
of great experience, and of deep diplomatic skill, was of more 
practical avail than a hero or an enthusiast. A prelatic Cyril, 

* The pamphlets of the period bear ample testimony on these heads. 
Making all allowance for the exaggerations of the Episcopal pamphleteers, 
no doubt remains that during the twenty-eight years of Charles and James, 
Scottish Presbyterianism had lost several of the old characteristics, which 
were common to it, with all the other Reformed Churches. An interesting 
reference to these will be found in Dr. T. Leishman's ' Introduction to the 
Directory.' Sage (' Fundamental Charter,' p. 362) is very amusing about 
the Presbyterian alterations and defections from better times. Old people, 
he says (to take one instance), educated before the Donatism of the Covenant, 
" will still uncover on entering the kirk ; but not the younger generation. 
Mas. John himself enters church as mannerly as the coarsest cobbler in the 
parish. In he steps, uncovers not till in the pulpit, claps straight on his 
breech, and within a little falls to work as the Spirit moves him. All the 
congregation must sit close in the time of prayer ; clap on their bonnets in 
the time of sermon, &c." 



XII.] CARSTABES AND THE KING." 203 

or a Presbyterian Savonarola, would have burst all bonds of 
Eevolution settlements, and plunged Church and State into 
chaotic turmoil. Whether out of the chaos something might 
not have emerged, of a higher type than modern Scottish 
Presbytery and Episcopacy, is a question which may be left 
open. 

What work there was to do for Scotland, however, Carstares 
did. It was not work of the high reforming or constructive 
sort ; chiefly work of mediating, moderating, adjusting, not 
less needful in its place than the other ; perhaps not so easy 
as the other, because sustained by no loud encouragements of 
excited sympathy, and done often silently and out of sight. 
" I think," says Carstares, " all the pains I have been at, and 
the success that in some small measure I have had, might, 
at least, be acknowledged." Was this a half-pathetic appeal 
for friendly sympathy ; or was it a judicious hint for such an 
expression of his brethren's approval, as might strengthen his 
hands in guiding the policy of the King ? Possibly, it com- 
bined both. At times he found it hard enough to guide that 
policy, partly from the King's actual indifference to Scotch 
affairs, partly from the busy intrigues of opposing politicians. 
No one, however, was able to supplant him in William's con- 
fidence, or to lessen the " extraordinary share "* which he had 
in the government of his native country and in the personal 
esteem and friendship of the King. Wodrow, in his * Ana- 
lecta ' (which is not so trustworthy as his * History'), records 
an anecdote, in illustration of this, which we may take at what 
it is worth. 

He was told, he says, by Mr. Andrew Fullarton (minister 
at Paisley), who " had it from good hands, that one morning, 
when the King was in his closet, some Scotsmen fell a speak- 
ing to the King anent Mr. Carstares, and they told him it was 
the mind of his best friends he should be removed from about 

* Lord Hardwicke's note to Burnet, vol. iv. p. 535. " Bishop Burnet 
never mentions the extraordinary share, which Mr. Carstares a private 
Scotch minister, had in the management there and in King William's 
confidence." 



204 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

him ; and the English bishops were taking umbrage that he 
should have so much of his ear. The King gave them no 
answer. Within a while the King came forth to the chamber 
of presence, and the on waiters, nobility, and others, made a 
lane for him to go through them. At the entry of the lane, 
Mr. Carstares stood. The King bowed to all as he came 
through them ; and when he came near to Mr. Carstares, he 
put out his hand to him, and said, in the hearing of all, 
' Honest William Carstares, how is all with thee this morn- 
ing ?' This was answer enough to his accusers."* 

The great mass of the ' Carstares State Papers,' preserved 
by McCormick, proves how completely communication be- 
tween Scotland and William lay under Carstares's control. 
" Few Scotsmen," says Macky, " had access to the King but 
by him, so that he was properly viceroy of that kingdom, and 
was called at Court Cardinal Carstares."! We gather the same 
from his own letters and papers among the Graham Dunlop 
MSS. Every question affecting Scotland seems to have been 
laid before him, and every measure ruled, more or less, by 
his advice. There was a proposal, for example, that the 
King should have a Scottish Council beside him in London. 
It was submitted to Carstares, who reports upon it thus: 
" In the time of King James the First, there were several 
persons of quality of Scotland, as I have heard, that had 
places about the King, which gave occasion to his having a 
Scots Council near his person, and made the power of his 
secretaries not very significant, nor much dreaded by the sub- 
jects. I do believe that things were much after the same 
manner in the time of Charles the First. After the restora- 
tion of Charles the Second, there was a Scots council at Court, 
in which there were some English, of whom the Earl of 
Clarendon was one, who having, as I have been informed, 
concerned himself too much in Scots affairs — being the great 
support of a party in Scotland that was opposed to Earl 
Lauderdale, then Secretary, and was headed by the late Earl 

* ' Arjalecta,' vol. i. p. 261. 

t ' Memoirs, &c.' ; Characters of the Nobility of Scotland, p. 210. 



X1L] SCOTS COUNCIL. 205 

of Middleton (who was at that time his majesty's commis- 
sioner), — Lauderdale for his own security, the hindering of 
Clarendon's meddling so much in Scots affairs, and the in- 
creasing of his own power, did procure the dissolving of this 
Council : but I did never hear that what he did, in this, was 
displeasing to the honest solid party of Scotland, for Lauder- 
dale's management was, for some years after that, very fair 
and acceptable to the country, till engrossing all power to 
himself, and hindering, as much as was possible, any access to 
the King but to such as he knew to be his friends, his 
management came to be uneasy, and gave rise to strong fac- 
tions in the kingdom. Now, there being at present heats 
and parties in Scotland, occasioned by what have been the 
different interests and contrary managements of secretaries 
(and these heats kept up by the apprehension that the dif- 
ferent parties have of what may be the influence of a secretary 
for a kingdom that is at a distance from His Majesty), the 
proposal made to the King about having a Scots Council near 
his person seems to be rational enough.* But the having of 
a fixed Scots Council here hath, in my humble opinion, these 
inconveniencies : 1st, It will be a greater charge to the 
governmeDt than at present it can well bear, the least that 
can be allowed to each of this council being £600 sterling, 
yearly. 2dly, Such a fixed council would much lessen the 
authority of the King's Council in Scotland, because all men 
would have their eyes upon the Council here, and make their 
interest with it and applications to it. 3rdly, It would not, 
I am afraid, answer the end for which it is designed, of laying 
heats, and preventing parties ; for as there would be a diffi- 
culty in choosing the men, so if they be of one party, the 
other will have greater apprehensions of their power and 

* This paper is undated, but this sentence, and the other which alludes 
to trade, seem to refer to the time when James Johnston, who had been 
British envoy at Berlin (son of the Johnston of Warriston beheaded after 
the Kestoration) was dismissed from the Secretaryship of State, which he 
had held as colleague to Sir John Dalrymple. 



206 WILLIAM CARSTARJES. [Chap. 

influence than of the Secretary's ; and if they be mixed of 
both parties, it will not be possible to hinder their intriguing 
in their different ways, and making affairs at least as per- 
plexed, if not more, than they are at present. 4thly, I am 
afraid that if it be a fixed council, the King will be in some 
difficulty as to the naming of those English that he would 
have to be in it ; for if they should be only Whigs, then the 
other party would conclude that there must be more at 
the bottom of this affair than there really is ; and if they be 
a mixture of Tories and Whigs, it will give a jealousy to 
many of the Scots, and be an occasion of continual intriguing ; 
besides the present ferment betwixt the two nations as to 
trade seems to make this business, at present, difficult. I 
am indeed sensible that it is very fit that Scotland have an 
opinion that secretaries do not possess entirely the King's 
ear, nor have an uncontrolled influence in the management 
of affairs ; but the method the King hath followed this 
winter in allowing a fair hearing to both parties in presence 
of one another, and what he is about to do in calling a Scots 
Council, may, I hope, be of great use to beget such an 
opinion in that kingdom ; especially if His Majesty shall think 
fit to let his Scots Council, when he calls them, know that he 
resolves to take such methods as shall ease his subjects 
of fears of being prejudged by any unsuitable influence, 
or partial suggestions of any particular persons about him. 
I do, my Lord,* with all humility and candour, lay -these 
things before your Lordship with a sincere design for His 
Majesty's service. I shall take the boldness, my Lord, to 
say only one thing more, which is, that the more I con- 
sider the temper of this nation and their notions of govern- 
ment, together with their way of management with a respect 
to His Majesty, the more I dread the thoughts of any of the 
English being much concerned in our affairs, or of my coun- 
trymen having any encouragement to meddle with them as to 

* Lord Portland, to whom, in general, Carstares's notes, memoranda, &c., 
were formally addressed. 



XII.] "INSTRUCTIONS." 207 

the management of public business ; and I must confess, this 
is one of my great exceptions against this fixed Scots Council 
here, as it is proposed."* 

In another paper, we find him offering suggestions about 
an inquiry into " the funds of the poll and excise," which are 
alleged to be " almost sinking ;" about auditing the Treasury 
accounts ; leases of tithes ; the advantage of a " separate 
fund " for the King to give " in charity, or for reasonable 
gratifications to those of the Scots nation that apply to him, 
here or in Flanders, that may be fit objects of the King's 
charity or gratification." In another, he supplements the 
private and public ' Instructions,' which the King designed 
for his Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament ; thus, for 
example : — " Private Instructions : . . . . The 6th private 
instruction may run thus ; If the Parliament cannot he Drought 
to give supplies, hut by offering Acts which are either contrary 
to your instructions, or not contained in them, you are then to 
adjourn, &c" — " Public Instructions : .... To the end of 
the 17th instruction these words may be added : But you are 
not to he sudden in passing this Act, because upon a further 
consideration of the matter of it we may more fully instruct 
you about it. . . . This may be added to the private instruc- 
tions, if His Majesty think fit : As to our 2Brd public instruc- 
tion, about encouraging trade, you are to take particular care 
that nothing he done in that matter that may raise jealousies, 
or disturb our affairs in our kingdom of England. This 
private instruction may also, if His Majesty please, be added : 
You are to endeavour that supplies for the forces, of as long 
continuance as can be obtained, be one of the first things 
granted by the Parliament, and that other business that 
would delay them be as much kept off as can be, till they be 
expeded" 

Amidst the charge of public affairs to which these papers 
bear witness, Carstares was never neglectful of the claims of 
private friendship, and seems to have marked with observant 

* Graham Dunlop MSS. The proposal was not carried out. 



208 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

concern, and remembered with tenacity, anything that 
touched the interests of his kindred or friends. The letter 
which follows is undated and unaddressed, so that the reci- 
pient cannot be identified ; but its kindly faithfulness is very 
characteristic of the writer : — 

" My Lord, — Nothing hut a dutiful respect to your Lordship, 
and a sincere and entirely affectionate concern for your Lordship's 
honour and true interest, could have obliged me to give your Lord- 
ship the trouble of these lines, and to lay before you my great grief 
because of reports, not whispered, but loudly talked of, here, as if 
your Lordship had forsaken that modest way of managing yourself, 
that even in your younger years, and amidst many tentations you 
were honoured for, and highly esteemed. I have, indeed, my Lord, 
had too much reason to be sensible that when one is envied and 
hath ill-willers, many methods are used, without regard either to 
truth or justice, to blast his reputation and lessen his credit ; and I 
would gladly persuade myself that what is said to your Lordship's 
disadvantage is only an effect of malice ; and I shall be very un- 
willingly brought to believe that you shall ever be left so far to 
yourself as to forget your God, your religion, your honour, and your 
temporal as well as eternal interest, your noble family, and what 
the faith of a judgment to come and a future state doth call for from 
your Lordship, and to follow those whose ways are moveable that 
you cannot know them, and whose feet go down to death and their 
steps take hold on hell. Nay, my Lord, the gracious and good God 
forbid it should be thus. I can, for myself, sincerely say, that I 
never observed anything in your Lordship that gave me the least 
ground to suspect that your Lordship was the least inclined to 
\ivords illegible], and may you never be so ; but after what I heard 
when I was at London, and what is talked of here, I could not 
satisfy myself without laying the matter before your Lordship, with 
the most affectionate concern : — and if there be any impertinency in 
it I hope your Lordship will impute it to the greatness of my affec- 
tion to your Lordship's person, and to the memory of those that 
are gone, for I shall never cease to be, 

" With the greatest respect, 

« My Lord, &c." 

As soon as the Assembly rose, on the 13th of November, 
1690, Carstares returned to London, carrying with him, for 



XII.] ARRAN. 209 



the King, transcripts of the minutes.* " I have been ex- 
ceedingly obliged to him," says Lord Carmichael, the Com- 
missioner. " His comiDg here has been of no small use to 
His Majesty's service and interest." Lord Cardross, who had 
been with Dunlop in Carolina, and was now General of the 
Mint, takes advantage of his journey to send up some 
specimens of the new Scotch coins of William and Mary. 
" The Mint is now going," he writes to Melville, " and I have 
sent up a few of each species to your Lordship by Mr. Car- 
stares : if your Lordship think fit you may show them to the 
King and Queen. The tenpences do not look so clear and 
well as the next will ; however, I could not but send of 
them as they were, being the first. The fault is only in 
the blanching, it being done with old materials that was 
lying in the Mint ; but your Lordship may observe it helped 
in the fortypences."' 

On the 2nd of December, Carstares writes to Dunlop, from 
London, "I. have done what I could for Arran" (Hamilton's 
eldest son),/' and I would fain hope he will not render him- 
self useless to his country by a groundless scruple. I do 
find there is no particular prejudice against him." No 
sentence could disclose more thoroughly that policy of prac- 
tical compromise, which was the only course open to a ruler 
like William. Arran had finessed at the Kevolution, had 
been implicated in Montgomerie's plot,f and now was not 
only holding back from taking the oaths to government, but 

* " If he would have undertaken to make the report alone," writes Lord 
Carmichael to Melville (Leven and Melville Papers, p. 570), " it might well 
have been rested on ; hut he was unwilling to do it, and was desirous that 
others should have been sent ; he has been very active to have matters go 
right, which has had very good effect." This disproves the insinuation of 
the Episcopal pamphleteer, who says, " It's said that Mr, Carstares, whom 
the King had sent down with letters of instruction to the Assembly, 
expected that they would have honoured him with that trust; but whether 
it was out of any jealousy of his conduct, or faithfulness, or if it was to 
gratify others who might have had particular designs of their own, they 
passed by Mr. Carstares and gave the employment to Mr. Gilbert Kule and 
Mr. David Blair." ' Historical Relation,' p. 63. 

t Burton, from 1688 ; vol. i. p. 84. 

P 



210 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

actually meddling with a new conspiracy. To the heir- 
apparent, however, of the great house of Hamilton, much 
should be forgiven, if only he would lend his influence to 
the established order. 

On the 15th of January he again writes to .ais brother-in- 
law, telling him he is going to Holland with the King. " I 
wonder," he adds, " I hear not of Magg's marriage ; but your 
principalship* makes you neglect all things else." According 
to Mr. Ferrie, his sister Margaret married, first, the Rev. 
William Mackay, minister of Markinch, and afterwards, 
Major Coult, of Edinburgh Castle. It is of her that 
McCormick relates the incident t which Dean Stanley quotes, 
as illustrating "the freshness and simplicity of Carstares' 
pastoral character, amongst the absorbing public affairs 
which occupied him ;" illustrating also, I may add, that 
strong feeling of family affection and faithfulness to the claims 
of kindred, which was one of his marked characteristics. 
"A few days after her husband's death," says McCormick, 
" Mr. Carstares came down from London to transact some 
matters of importance with King William's ministers in 
Scotland. She, hearing of his arrival, came over to Edin- 
burgh to see him. Upon calling at his lodgings in the 
forenoon, she was told he was not at leisure, as several of 
the nobility and officers of state were just gone in to him. 
She then bid his servant only whisper him that she desired 
to know when it would be most convenient for him to see 
her. He returned for answer ' immediately ' ; and leaving 
the company, ran to her, and embraced her in the most 
affectionate manner. Upon her attempting to make some 
apology for her unseasonable interruption to business, ' Make 
yourself easy/ says he, ' these gentlemen are come hither, 
not on my account, but their own. They will wait with 
patience till I return. You know I never pray long/ And 
after a short, but fervent prayer adapted to her melancholy 

* Carstares never employed the modern vulgarism of calling this office a 
"Principality." 

f McCormick, p. 89. Stanley's ' Church of Scotland.' p. 120. 



XII.] DB. CANARIES. 211 

circumstances, he fixed the tiuie when he would see her 
more at leisure, and returned, all in tears, to his company." 

On January the 18th he sailed for Holland, with William, 
who was about to open the great Congress at the Hague. 
When thus on foreign or military service with the King, he 
had, in addition to his ordinary salary, an allowance for 
travelling and camp expenses, at the rate of £500 a year. 
As usual, he kept up a correspondence with his brother- 
in-law. 

Car stares to Dunlop. 

" Hague, Feb. 10, st. v. '91. 
" Dear Brother. — Nothing can be done as to the affairs of the 
Universities at present, but I shall not be wanting in doing my en- 
deavours as I shall have opportunity. As for what concerns myself, 
I have no confidence to act in it,* for I would not do anything that 
might render me incapable any way to serve, in my capacity, the 
public interest. Pray, make Duke Hamilton your friend : if he 
come up to Court, I doubt not but he will be one to me, seeing some 
of the greatest men know my concern for him and that noble family. 
Dr. Canaries and Mr. Leask are here, doing what they can for their 
friends. I shall be faithful in my capacity to the true interest of 
the King and country. We have here the Electors of Bavaria and 
Brandenburg, the Duke of Wirtemberg, Landgrave of Hesse, 
Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, and many other great per- 
sons. I hope we shall have a good issue of this great meeting. . . . 
I hope my Lord Arran will be sensible of the King's kindness, and 
see, at last, that it is his interest and duty to be upon a bottom with 
him. My dear love to my sister and your family. Adieu." 

This Dr. Canaries was one of the disestablished clergy, 
peculiarly obnoxious to the Presbyterians,! and was now at 
Court as the representative of the Episcopalians.^ He 
carried to William an assurance of their loyalty, and a 

* It had been proposed to call Carstares to a church in Edinburgh. 

t ' Apology for the Clergy,' p. 103. 

% Canaries had been at first a Koman Catholic; then minister of Selkirk, 
and finally suspended from his ministry, by his bishop acting under the 
orders of Perth, the Chancellor, whose hostility Canaries had provoked by 
preaching, in St. Giles's, Edinburgh, a sermon against the errors of Rome. 
Grub, vol. hi. p. 285. 

p 2 



212 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 

complaint of the hardships they were enduring at the hands 
of the Commission of the Kirk. The result was a letter 
from the King to the Commission recommending lenity, and 
begging that no Episcopal minister, who should qualify to 
the government, and submit to Presbytery, should be dis- 
turbed. It was hard, no doubt, in William's private opinion, 
that in the midst of the Congress which was to rule the 
policy of half of Europe, and to direct the great coalition 
against his life-long enemy, France, he should be molested 
with the squabbles of Scotch ecclesiastics. If there were 
any more complaints of hardships (Sir John Dalrymple, who 
was in attendance at the Hague, writes to Melville) the 
Commission must investigate and settle the cases "impar- 
tially, and put the King to no further trouble."* To Craw- 
ford and the zealous Presbyterians, the concession accorded 
to the aggrieved complainers, ignoring, as it did, the Con- 
fession of Faith, was a fatal defection from the path of 
righteous government. Such ill-advised lenity, Crawford 
assures Melville, is attributed by the Jacobite and Episcopal 
party to fear, and not to charity, and only serves to inflame 
their insolence " to a strange pitch." " It has almost, if not 
altogether," he groans, " unhinged both Church and State."! 
The King's letter, however, only reiterated the constant 
principle of moderation and comprehension, in which his 
own just and liberal instincts had always been confirmed by 
the counsels of Carstares. 

While William was busy with the statesmen and soldiers 
of the Congress, Carstares found time to see his kindred at 
Rotterdam; and to revisit Utrecht, where he met, for the 
first time, Edmund Calamy, whom he ever afterwards num- 
bered among his esteemed friends. Calamy, who was still 
a student, about twenty years younger than Carstares, says ? 
" One of his principal aims was to pick up some that might 
be fit and qualified to make masters of in the several col- 
leges of Scotland, which had been before either too much 

* Lcven and Melville Papers, p. 595. 
t Ibid. pp. 596, 601. 



XII.] THE UNIVERSITIES. 213 

neglected, or filled with, improper persons. Here it was that 
I had my first acquaintance with that excellent person, whose 
friendship I had afterwards so much reason to value myself 
upon. He found me pretty studious and retired, and was 
pleased to enter into considerable freedom with me, which 
was afterwards improved both in Scotland and England. He 
then several times told me that if, when the course of my 
studies was finished, I would look towards North Britain, and 
could like a professor's life among them, he would readily 
gi\e me his utmost interest towards my obtaining as good 
encouragement as I reasonably could desire." * 

The wants of the Scotch universities, both in regard to 
men and to money, were much in Carstares' mind. Himself 
an accomplished scholar, he could not but see, with regret 
and alarm, the decadence of learning and culture among the 
clergy, which had marked the evil years since the Kestora- 
tion. The persecuted and expelled ministers had little 
opportunity of study. The younger men, who furtively entered 
the ministry between 1662 and 1688, set greater store by 
Presbyterian zeal than by liberal scholarship or theological 
science. The " curates," as a body, were more occupied 
with enforcing conformity, than cultivating their minds.. 
The few men among them of intellectual power and solid 
learning became professors in the universities ; and many 
of these had been removed, by Crawford's commission, for 
declining the oath of allegiance, so that the Church was 
without the means of training up properly educated candi- 
dates for the ministry. Carstares bestirred himself to secure 
able professors, and to provide the adequate salaries, without 
which it would be neither easy nor honourable to solicit, and 
to secure, the services of the erudite or the pious. " I have 
spoken to the King," he writes in April, after his return to 
London, " about allowing to the universities some part of the 
bishop's rents, and he seems to be much more inclined to 
do so than to give them to particular men. I shall not fail 
to push the matter as far as it will go, because it is service 
* Calamy's 'Historical Account of my own Life,' vol. i. p. 172. • 



214 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 

to the King and country. I could be content too you fell 
upon some method to call a foreign professor, such as De 
Vries at Utrecht : if you will get a call, I shall promote it."* 

In the month of May, the King returned to the Continent, 
to take the command of the forces of the Coalition in the 
campaign against the French, His visit to England had 
been busied with the examination of the plotters, who, urged 
by political discontent, or personal spleen, had, during the 
winter of 1690-1, been trying to undermine his throne; 
among whom were not a few of the very men who were 
eating his bread, and had sworn to be faithful to his service.! 
Arran, on whom Carstares' remonstrances had been thrown 
away, was involved in this new conspiracy. He was seized, 
along with others of the Scots nobility ; but the King, with 
a generosity which should have disarmed and shamed dis- 
affection and intrigue, gave orders that the culprits should be 
set at liberty, if they would give their word of honour not 
to disturb the government. Arran refused. " I will not 
give my word," he said, with a kind of perverse candour, 
" because I am sure I could not keep it." J 

Carstares was with the King for a short time at Loo, and 
in June went with him to the camp. While Ginkell and 
Mackay were successfully finishing the war which had lin- 
gered for nearly two years in Ireland, William conducted a 
campaign in Flanders, which was but languid and uneventful. 

No great action was fought, calling out that calm courage 
and contempt of clanger and death, which made the impassive 

* " M. de Yries, the chief philosophy professor, was very civil to the 
English and free in conversing with them. He was no great lover of the 
Prince of Orange, but a mighty friend to the Louvenstein faction, and yet 
was far from falling in with the Remonstrants in matters theological. He 
was prejudiced against the dissenters in England, of whom he had wrong 
notions." Calamy, vol. i. p. 158. 

f " The Prince of Orange is mortally hated by the English. They see 
very fairly that he hath no love for them, neither doth he confide in them, 

but all in his Dutch He is cursed daily by those of his council, 

his bedchamber, and others that have very good employment under him." 
Macpherson's ' State Papers/ vol. i. p. 890. 

J Dalrymple, part ii. book vi. p. 169. 



XII.] FROM THE CAMP. 215 

Dutchman, who was a wet blanket to his courtiers, a hero to 
his troops.* That courage, Carstares used to say, was not 
constitutional hardihood merely; it was fortified and sustained 
by religious principle. He had the best opportunities of 
judging, for he accompanied the King in his chariot to every" 
field of battle, remaining with him until the engagement be- 
gan.! William's tranquillity and composure, before the action, 
were only equalled by his " absolute contempt of danger in 
the field." 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" I had yours concerning the Earl of Arran, and am heartily 
sorry that he cannot give his Majesty satisfaction, in giving his 
word of honour not to act against the government for a few months, 
which is all, as the Master of Stair J told me (he speaks of him 
favourably enough), was desired of him. You know how much I 
employed myself for him, and what an honour I have for the family; 
but the King's service must be dear to me beyond that of any else, 
as it shall always I hope be. ... I wrote to you, long ago, about 
the business of the University, and told you that I found the King 
inclined to give all encouragement, and I think you may have an 
allowance for an extraordinary professor of Divinity, and another of 
philosophy ; but I would have them from Holland, where they are 
very good, and I suppose it will please the King best 

At the camp four hours on this side Namur. June 15, '91." 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

"(Jembloux, 3 leagues from Namur, 

" July 6, st. v. 

" There hath been a design to set fire to Bruges and 

Brussells in several places at once, that the French, who were to 
have forces near, might possess themselves of these towns, when the 
inhabitants and garrison were busied in quenching the fire ; but the 
treachery is discovered, and several committed to prison upon that 
account. There is, we hear, great discouragement in the French 
army under Luxemburgh, which we impute to the news from 
Vienna and Savoy ; from the first whereof it is hoped we shall, 
ere long, hear of the conclusion of a peace betwixt the Turk 
and Emperor. We have been here three weeks, but a little time 

* Burnet, vol. iv. p. 2. t McCormick, p. 38. 

X Sir John Dalrymple. 



^16 WILLIAM CARSTAJRUS. [Chap 



will sliow that our stay hath not been without good reason ; for the 
King is known not to lose time in acting. . . You want not enemies ; 
I hope they shall have no advantage of you, as to any neglect of the 
duties of your place. I gave you this hint from London. You are 
obliged to Duke Hamilton's kindness. You may, if you think fit, 
give my most humble duty to his Grace and the Duchess. I think 
now is the time for the Earl of Arran to give his word of honour 
not to disturb the government any way, — nay, to own it by offering 
to take the oath of allegiance. He is now under no constraint, and 
I am apt to think he cannot have a fitter season for doing it with 
honour and conscience too ; and pray tell my good Lord Carmichael 
that this is my opinion; and I speak not in this matter at random. 
.... My humble service to the Provost of Edinburgh, who I hope 
hath received mine. I do not find that either the King or Lord 
Portland have any unfavourable thoughts of him ; and this I say 
with reason. Pray give my humble duty to my Lord and my Lady 
Cardross, to whom I shall always be a true friend and faithful 
servant. Show him my news, as also to worthy Mr. Kule, whom I 
kindly salute, and shall do all in tbe concerns of the church that 
shall be in my power, if I be not incapacitated by not having par- 
ticular accounts of what passeth. . . I did acquaint my Lord Port- 
land with what you wrote to me concerning the frankness of 
Glasgow for the government. Adieu, goodly principal, and my 
dear love to Sandy and Johnie. I fancy you will think that in my 
writing I am like the Muirlandmen in their drinking. . . The 
King is hearty and well, and so is the Master of Stair, who carries 
very civilly to me." 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

"At the head-quarters, 2 leagues from Philippeville, 

" August 3rd. 

. ..." I could wish some way were taken to acquaint some 
sober men of the Church of England With the reasonableness of 
their procedure, — I mean the Commission — which, I suppose, would 
be pleasing to the King. I hope their carriage at this time shall 
be such as that their enemies shall have no advantage of them, and 
they may be assured of all the service that is in my power. "We 
have here a strong army, and did upon Friday last march towards 
the enemy, and stood twenty-four hours within little more than an 
English mile of their camp ; but they lay still, and had they not 
been very strongly posted, the King had attacked them in their 



XII.] FROM TEE CAMP. 217 

tents, and I believe had done so, however, had his generals been of 
his mind. We had an alarm in our camp upon Saturday night 
last, which was thus: In the very centre of our ammunition wag- 
gons two bombs were kindled in two distinct waggons, where there 
was also powder, and a lighted match was found in "a third ; but 
some soldiers were so stout as to draw those waggons, in which the 
bombs were burning, from among the rest and to overthrow them, 
by which,- in God's good providence, there was no further harm. 
... As for your coming to London upon our return, I do conceive 
the affairs of your University may make it expedient, and I believe 
it might not be amiss that Dr. Fall were upon the place too. . . 
Let me tell you Lieut. Gen. Douglas and Breadalban are at Brus- 
sells, and will be here w T ith the first convoy. I cannot see how his 
negociation, according to my account of it, will be for his credit 
here." 

This letter is indorsed : " 21 Aug., 1691. I opened this 
according to allowance. I got it within this half hour, and 
am so straitened by the post, that I can add no more than 
that the King is expected in England next month, and I am 
to you and yours your most affectionate J. Steuart." 

Car stares to Dunlop. 

"At the head-quarters at St. Gerard, 

" betwixt Dinant and Xamur, 

" 17 August, '91. 

" Breadalban complains much of the carriage of the Synod of 
Argyll to one Lindsay, as I remember he called him. They sus- 
pended him for contumacy, though he came two hours after the 
time he should have appeared ; but none of his entreaties could 
prevail with them to take off the suspension. This being a matter 
of fact I could say nothing to it. . . . - . Breadalban's negociation * 

* The Earl of Breadalbane had proposed, with a view to quiet the 
Highlands, that a pardon and £12,000 in money should be given to the 
Highlanders still in arms, and that the chiefs should be pensioned, on con- 
dition of their keeping a certain number of their clansmen available for 
military service at home or abroad. Sir John Dalrymple laid this plan 
before the King, and Breadalbane was summoned to Flanders, that the terms 
of the project might be exactly adjusted. This negotiation proved to he 
the first, unsuspected, step towards the tragedy of Glencoe. See Dalrymple, 
part ii. book vi. p. 1ST, and Appendix, p. 217. 



218 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

is said not to be so bad as was represented ; and he himself told 
me that some things which I had heard about that matter were 
utterly false. . . I hear the King did last night make his com- 
pany at table merry with his asking, at my Lord Breadalban, 
if there were any wolves in the Highlands, and upon his answer- 
ing in the negative, with telling him that they had enough of 
two-footed wolves to need any four-footed ones. We are like to 
have no battle this season. I wrote you, in my last, of the 
danger our ammunition was in. We now find, upon the tortur- 
ing of one taken upon suspicion,* that it was a design set on foot 
by the French, who were, upon its success, to have largely rewarded 
the actors, and to have fallen upon our army when in the conster- 
nation that such an accident would have been attended with ; but 
God delivered us. We have been troubled and shamed with the 
application of one Mr. Will. Houstoun, who hath, for some days, 
haunted the King and Court, complaining of a breach of the claim 
of right in his late imprisonment, and desiring a warrant for being 
admitted to a church, to which he is called, and kept from it by the 
suggestions of some ill-willers. He says he is come in the name of 
several, who offer to raise a regiment for His Majesty, and desire 
that he would give a commission to a blank person to be Col., and 
to Capt. Bruce to be Lieut. Col. He also desires for himself and 
brother compensation of their losses. I was spoke to about him, 
and said what I thought was proper, but being desirous to have him 
out of this place, did desire that some little money might be given 
him, to carry him on his way, and that he might be dispatched, 
which I suppose he will be this clay, for my Lord Portland is as 
desirous to have him gone as any man can be, for he is confident 
and clamorous ; and I suppose the best way to deal with such men 
will be not to make them sufferers." 

Carstares to Dunlojp. 

" At the head-quarter at St. Gerard, 

" August 20, '91. 
. ..." I apprehend my letters must be intercepted by some with 
you ; but it is more than dare be avowed. I write nothing myself, 
nor have any friends that write anything to me, but what they will 
own. I know I have ill-willers that think it not their interest at 
present to own themselves such, but wait for an advantage, which I 

* This, and the case of Neville Payne, are enough to prove that torture 
was not so wholly unpractised under William, as Whig enthusiasm for 
his memory would have us believe. 



XII.] GLENCOE. 219 

hope they shall never have — it being my endeavour to carry myself 
with that integrity as to my gracious prince and country, that I 

dread nothing of what they can do We can do nothing here 

this summer, the French shunning all fighting, and it not being 
j)ossible, as this country lies, to force them to it. Breadalban goes 
from hence in a day or two, with conditions for his Highlanders, 
which seem not to be so bad as they were represented. Your friend 
hath done his duty with freedom and faithfulness upon this occa- 
sion. I can assure you that His Majesty hath good and honest in- 
tentions, and it will, I doubt not, appear in time that he hath them." 

It is plain from the way in which Carstares here refers to 
Breadalbane, and his plan for quieting the Highlands, that 
he regarded it as a fair and feasible plan, although at the 
first he had evidently been prejudiced against it, and that he 
believed that the King's intentions concerning the High- 
landers were " good and honest." That he should have 
written thus, to an intimate correspondent, about a pro- 
gramme which included the foulest treachery and midnight 
murder, is beyond belief. Nor is it probable that at the out- 
set, Breadalbane himself, who was selfish and cunning rather 
than ferociously cruel, designed such an end to his scheme of 
pacification, as the Massacre of G-lencoe. But the advantages 
offered to those, who should fall in with his terms before the 
1st of January, 1692, had to be balanced by the terror of 
threats that would come straight home to the blood-boltered 
imagination of the marauding Celt ; and therefore the issue 
of "letters of fire and sword," against such as should not 
comply, was a natural accompaniment of a policy of concilia- 
tion. The burden of the guilt of the massacre rests on the 
Master of Stair rather than on Breadalbane. The Master's 
expectation that the clans would not generally accept the 
offered terms cannot be misunderstood. He depended on the 
letters of fire and sword, and not on the King's amnesty, for 
the quieting of the half-savage glens and straths ; and with an 
exhilaration which has justly been called " fiendish " * by a 
grave historian, anticipated the opportunity of applying to 

* Hill Burton, vol. i. chap. iv. See also Macaulay's account of Glencoe, 
' History,' chap, xviii. Nothing can be added to these two narratives. 



220 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

the Highlands of his native country the policy which the 
Spaniards had applied to the Indians of Mexico and Pern, 
and which was not without more recent illustrations in the 
Irish campaigns of the Great Protector.* To what extent King 
William was actually aware of the import of the measures, to 
which he assented, can never now be determined. I am in- 
clined to believe that he knew little, and thought less, about 
the affairs of the remote and turbulent districts, among 
which these measures were to be put in force ; and I find a 
strong confirmation of this opinion in the fact that through- 
out the whole of Carstares' correspondence, I can light on no 
reference, howsoever indirect, to the tragedy of Glencoe. 
Had he known anything about its true character ; had he 

* See his letters in Dalrymple's Appendix. 

In the year 1873 we find the following orders issued in the model 
Republic : — 

" Head-quarters Army of United States, 
" Washington, April 12. 
" General Gillem, Modoc Camp, via Yreka, Cal. 
" Your dispatch announcing the terrible loss to the country of General 
•Canby by the perfidy of the Modoc band of Indians has been shown to the 
President, who authorises me to instruct you to make the attack so strong 
and persistent that their fate may be commensurate with their crime. 
You will be fully justified in their utter extermination. 

" (Signed) W. T. Sheemax, General. 
" Eepeat, as copy, for General Schofield, San Francisco, Cal." 

Two days later the General in Chief sent the following to General 

" "Washington, April 11. 
"General J. M. Schofield, commanding Military Division, San Francisco. 
" Your dispatch of yesterday is this moment received. Last night, 
about midnight, General Townsend came to my house with a dispatch 
from General Gillem to the same effect as yours, which dispatch he had 
shown to the President, and I answered General Gillem direct with a copy 
of the answer to you. The President now sanctions the most severe 
punishment of the Modocs, and I hope to hear that they have met the 
doom they so richly have earned by their insolence and perfidy. Consult 
Mrs. Canby, and have every honour paid the remains of General Canby. 
This is Sunday. I will see the President this evening, and to-morrow 
will notify you of any change in the existing command, if made, but you 
may be sure that any measure of severity to the savages will be sustained. 

"(Signed) W. T. Sherman, General." 



XII.] GLESCOE. 221 

believed it was to be a lasting stain on his master's good 
name ; bad be supposed it would afford tbe most damning 
accusation against Sir John Dalryniple, with whom bis rela- 
tions were not always cordial, it is impossible that his confi- 
dential letters, to Dunlop at least, should not have borne 
some trace of his thoughts upon this shameful outrage. But 
he is as silent about it as though it had never been. The 
crime was committed on the 13th of February. On the 18th 
of March Carstares wrote to Dunlop, from London, on his 
way to join the King, who had gone to Holland. He speaks 
of the General Assembly, which had met on the 15th of 
January, and had sat for a month ; but neither then, nor in 
his subsequent letters does he say a word of Glencoe. 



222 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

General Assembly of 1692 — Letters from Holland and London — Oath of 
Assurance — 1694 — Midnight interview of Carstares and William. 

Among the many difficulties attending the ecclesiastical 
settlement, which followed the Revolution, were some in- 
separable from the union of Church and State. Absolute as 
the action of the State had been in establishing the Church, 
the Church, when once established, was co-ordinate with the 
State ; and it had never been inclined, in Scotland, either 
before or since the Reformation, to abate a jot of its own 
authority. The claim of " spiritual independence," which 
Andrew Melville had urged with his usual intemperance, 
had not been forgotten during the prelatic days, when the 
adherents of the proscribed religion saw, with contemptuous 
amazement, those very bishops, who alleged an apostolical 
commission, suspended from their office, or bandied about 
from one diocese to another, at the pleasure of a worthless 
King. And now, the restored Presbyters, rejoicing in. a 
recovered power, were nowise ready to copy the prelatic 
example, in yielding a servile submission to the dictate of 
the civil magistrate. " Csesar " — that mysterious entity that 
has figured so largely, and stood such free abuse, in Scottish 
ecclesiastical disputes — had done too much for them to be 
openly defied. But it was possible to offer to his policy, if it 
did not chime with theirs, an inert and stolid opposition of 
inaction and non-compliance, which should defeat it as 
effectually as overt hostility. Of this kind were the conduct 
and the temper of the Assembly of 1692. The King had 
become possessed with the idea that the Church was dealing 
too harshly with the Episcopal incumbents. The Church 



X11I] THE CHURCHMEN OF 1688. 223 

had become possessed with the idea that the King was too 
favourably affected towards them. 

There was irritation on the one hand; suspicion on the 
other. Carstares and the moderate party dreaded the issue 
of the Assembly,* which, after some invidious postponement, 
was held on the 15th of January, 1692. 

It was the misfortune of the Church, at this time, that its 
counsels and actions fell to be conducted by men, who were 
not equal to the demands of the occasion. 

The race of great ecclesiastics — reformers, scholars, and 
statesmen, had died out. Their successors were punier men. 
" Who tied Dolabella to that sword ?" asked Cicero of his 
paltry son-in-law. What fate connected the Hugh Kennedies 
and Gilbert Kules of the Kevolutionary era, with the final 
establishment of a church which had a great history, and 
was the representative of exalted principles ? They appear 
to have scarce realised their position, as trustees of the 
honour and justice of Church and State, or to have under- 
stood that they were suffered to stand where they did, for the 
sole purpose of consolidating — on ground which had been 
wasted alike by puritanic fanaticism, and by prelatic exclu- 
siveness — a comprehensive Church, whose policy should not 
be dictated by dogmatism and tradition, but by the reason- 
ableness and charity of Christian wisdom ; a church which 
should seem to have drawn from its Presbyterian ancestry the 
spirit of Knox and Buchanan, rather than that of Melville 
and Guthrie ; and from its Episcopal alliances the principles 
of Hooker and Taylor, rather than those of Bancroft and Laud. 
Those causes of ill feeling and distrust, which are apt to 
operate most forcibly on minds deficient in culture and ex- 
perience, were not wanting. The King had listened with 
patient courtesy to Episcopalian statements of grievances; he 
had promoted to office men who were little better than careless 
Gallios, in the eyes of the staunch Whig and Presbyterian 
party ; he had indicated, with severe brevity and plain- 
ness, his idea of the terms on which the Church should 
* Graham Dnnlop MSS. 



221 WILLIAM CAR ST ABES. [Chap. 



accommodate itself to the peculiar circumstance of the 
Episcopal clergy. 

It was now of moment to "William that the Episcopal 
clergy should, if possible, be allowed to remain in their 
parishes. As soon as a " curate " was put out, his natural 
tendency was, either to relapse into active sedition at home, 
or to travel southwards, inveighing, as he journeyed, against 
Presbyterianism and Whiggery, until, on arriving in Eng- 
land, he lent his angry voice to swell the chorus of High 
Church and Tory discontent. But the Assembly, which 
consisted of about 170 members,* clerical and lay, did not 
consider the interests of the King's policy at large ; and 
though urged by a . letter from him, and by the active 
superintendence of the Commissioner, would not concur in 
the royal suggestions. Under the authority of the last 
Assembly, a large number of the Episcopal ministers had 
been expelled; but few, if any, had been received into 
communion with the Establishment. The King complained 
of this. The Assembly, thus refusing to admit or recog- 
nise these, clergymen, continued, he said, to restrict the 
representation of the Church to a minority. He desired 
not only that the Episcopalians, who duly complied with 
the prescribed terms, should remain unmolested in their 
charges, but that they should be admitted, as constituent 
members, to the church courts. He sent down a formula of 
declaration, which he considered proper as the condition on 
which they might be thus admitted. The formula was 
admirably drawn, strict in its demand of loyalty to the con- 
stitution and government of the Church, lax in its exaction 
of concurrence with the letter of the established creed. t 

* " A set of men much younger and hotter-spirited than the last." 
Letter to Portland from Sir P. Hume (Lord Pol worth). Marchmont 
Papers, vol. iii. p. 400. 

f "I A. B. do sincerely declare and promise that I will submit to the 
Presbyterial government of the Church, as it- is now established in this 
kingdom, under their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, by 
presbyteries, provincial synods, and general assemblies ; and that I will, as 
becomes a minister of the gospel, heartily concur with the said government, 



XIII.] ASSEMBLY OF 1692. 225 

Most of the Episcopal clergy, who had taken the oath of 
allegiance professed themselves satisfied with it, and peti- 
tioned the Assembly that they might accordingly be received. 
The Assembly would neither refuse nor assent. The for- 
mula and the petitions were both referred to committees ; 
and day after day the House spent its time over details con- 
nected with individual cases, without making progress towards 
a measure of general applicability. At last, on the 13th of 
February, the Earl of Lothian, the Commissioner, brusquely 
told them that they had sat for a month, and not done what 
they were called together to do ; and thereupon dissolved the 
Assembly, specifying no day for a future meeting. Upon this, 
the Moderator, after some parley, named a day, and the clergy, 
having thus asserted their independence, sullenly separated, 
muttering against Episcopalian craft and royal Erastianism.* 

" Use all endeavours," says Carstares to Dunlop, on the 
8th of March, " to keep people from extravagancies upon the 
account of changes that are made. Patience will be our 
advantage and cannot prejudge us. I always dreaded the 
issue of the Assembly. You shall hear more from me when 
in Holland." 

William had just crossed to the Hague, whither Carstares 
followed him. 

He writes from Loo, soon after his arrival, warning Dunlop 
that Lord Portland had been told that he had encouraged 
his brethren in the Assembly to resist the King's wishes. 
Dunlop appears to have been somewhat unguarded in his 
speech " It is fit that you take notice of your discourse," 
says his brother-in-law in another letter ; and he promises to 
make his peace with Lord Portland. 



for the suppressing of sin and wickedness, the promoting of piety, and the 
purging of the Church of all erroneous and scandalous ministers. And I 
do further promise that I will subscribe the Confession of Faith, and the 
shorter, and larger, catechisms, now confirmed by Act of Parliament, as con- 
taining the doctrine of the Protestant religion professed in this kingdom." 



* Burnet, vol. iv. pp. 155-7. Burton, from 1688, vol. i. chap. vi. Cun- 
ningh m, vol. ii. p. 298 et seq. Grub, vol. iii. p. 328. 

Q 



226 WILLIAM OARSTABES. [Chap. 

It is evident, however, that the recent Assembly was a 
sore subject at Loo, and 'had occasioned angry feelings. " I 
find no alteration as to myself," he says, " nor is there, as you 
well know, any reason there should be any. As there is 
opportunity, I shall mind you and your university. . . . Let 
us be quiet, and show all duty to our gracious Prince, and 
we may make amends for the last fatal step of the Assembly — 
concerning which you know my mind. Adieu, dear brother, 
and remember few are to be trusted as to discourse or 
actions." 

King William found, on his return to the Continent, that a 
formidable task awaited him, in reanimating and invigorating 
the policy of his allies, and bringing their troops to the theatre 
of war. After many disappointments and delays, the allied 
forces were brought together, and he took the command. He 
hastened towards Namur, around which lay the great army, 
that, before the leaders of the Coalition were half equipped, 
had already followed the splendid Louis to the field. Car- 
stares, as usual, attended William. He writes from " the camp 
at Bethlehem, near Louvain," on the 23rd of May, to Dunlop. 

" Dear Brother, — I have had three of yours, and am 
glad you have had an opportunity of confuting the calumnies 
of your enemies, and manifesting your duty to your King, 
and concern for your country. The good news of our fleet 
will, I hope, confound the designs of Jacobins, and some men 
will be taken in their own snare.* G-od does his work, and it 
ought indeed to be marvellous in our eyes. The French 
have besieged Namur, and batter it from several places. 
Yesterday they took a windmill near the town, and were 
forced to quit it again with the loss of several hundreds of 

* The great sea battle of La Hogue had been won. King James, 
watching the action from the French shore, saw in the English victory the 
ruin of his last hopes of his forfeited crown. He " slowly and sadly 
returned," says Dalrymple (part ii. book vii.), " to bury the remembrance of 
his greatness in the convent of La Trappe. All his attempts, and those of 
his family, afterwards, to recover the throne of their ancestors, were either 
disappointed by the insincerity of French friendship, or were the mere 
efforts of despair." 



XIII.] NAMUR AND STEINKIRK. 227 

men. We go on in our march towards them to-morrow ; and 
it is very probable we shall in a very few days have a battle. 
We have a great army of 90 battalions of foot, all, almost, 
of them very full ; and 200 squadrons of horse : our men 
are in good heart, — God give the blessing. ... I should 
be glad to hear that Hugh Cunningham had got my rents of 
'91 and rest of '90,* for I and my wife both do need them. 
Campaigns are expensive ; and three horses and two ser- 
vants, which are absolutely necessary for me, will be expen- 
sive. Pray take your own way to speak to him, and to let 
me know how much I may draw upon him for. . . . We are 
just now firing with great and small shot for the victory at 
sea. We have 100 pieces of cannon." " I have access," he 
adds at a later date, " often in Angus' [the Cameronian] and 
Leven's regiments to be employed in my proper work ;" — 
almost the only reference in any of his letters to his clerical 
capacity. 

The fall of Namur, and the battle of Steinkirk — in which 
Mackay, of Killiecrankie, fell where the dead lay thickest — 
left but scant glory to William's generalship at the end of 
the indecisive campaign. He returned in October to pass 
the winter in England. 

Carstares was still much occupied with the state of the 
Scottish universities, ill equipped with professors, and po- 
verty-stricken, as they were. Again and again, in his corre- 
spondence with Dunlop, he assures him that the universities 
are not forgotten. Dunlop was an active member of the 
f General correspondence," or joint-committee for the affairs 
of the universities, and urged their claims, both publicly and 
through the private influence of Carstares, who, in the in- 
terests both of learning and of the Church, was eager to secure 
the better endowments, which were an essential part of any 
university reform. There were but few funds available for the 
purpose, but at last, in 1693, Carstares obtained a gift from 

* There is no indication among the Graham Dunlop MSS., or elsewhere, 
of the sources of Carstares' private income, or of his possession of any- 
landed property. 

Q 2 



228 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

the crown of £1200 a year, out of the bishops' rents, which 
was divided equally between the four universities. He also 
procured, at the same time, the place of historiographer for 
Scotland, with a salary of £40 a year, for his brother-in-law, 
the Principal.* 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" London, Nov. 1. 

" I had yours, and against Mr. Johnstone's time of officiating — 
which will be the beginning of the next month, I shall endeavour 
to have the business of your university settled, so well as I can ; 
and shall have a meeting of the Bishop of Salisbury, f Dr. Fall, 
Secretary Johnstone, and myself, for that effect, and the historio- 
grapher shall not he forgot. And I assure you not only my nephews, 
but the father and mother too, are more upon my heart than I con- 
fess they have reason to think from what is visible. I am sure 
you will have good thoughts of us now, when you have got Sir 
James Steuart for Advocate, and Ormistoun for Justice Clerk, with 
the good liking of his honest predecessor, who is still in the King's 
favour." 

James Steuart had, till now, lain under the King's sus- 
picion and dislike, owing to the part he had played before 
the Kevolution; but his great ability, and the confidence 
which the Presbyterian party reposed in him, gave him a 
claim to office which could not be resisted, the more espe- 
cially as some recent appointments (such as that of Lord 
Tweeddale, a suspected Jacobite, to the Chancellorship) had 
given that party grave offence. Cockburn, of Ormiston, the 
new Lord Justice Clerk, was one of the most zealous Pres- 
byterians of the day,J and now succeded George Campbell, 
of Cessnock, who had held the same office since 1690. 

Office had also been offered to the Duke of Hamilton, who, 
offended at Melville's Commissionership, was still sulking, 
like Achilles in his tent, although Melville had now been 

* Bower's c History of the University of Edinburgh/ vol. ii. p. 44. 
Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 522 (Appendix). Graham Dunlop MSS. 

f Burnet had been himself a professor at Glasgow. 

% McCormick, p. 99. Macky's ' Characters,' p. 244 : " Hardly in com- 
mon charity with any man out of the verge of Presbytery." 



XIII.] DUKE OF HAMILTON. 229 

relegated to the unimportant post of Keeper of the Privy- 
Seal. The Duke was one of those men of vast territorial and 
social influence, and unemphatic opinions, who are specially 
useful in offices of state where parties are bitterly divided, 
and where heroic policies have no chance of success. 

Carstares was very anxious he should take a place in the 
government. " Mr. Carstares," Lord Basil Hamilton writes 
to his father, " is much for your Grace's not quitting the 
government, for all that is done; and he says he is very sure 
that things will come to your hand." The Duke at last was 
persuaded, and after refusing the place of Lord Admiral 
of Scotland, he accepted again the dignity of Lord High 
Commissioner.* 

To the extreme Presbyterians, Hamilton was by no means 
so acceptable a representative of royalty as Melville, and Car- 
stares' interest in his appointment was regarded, by them, as 
a sign of his often suspected lukewarmness towards the Church. 
He was quite aware that his temperate and cautious policy 
was not popular with the fervid party, though he did not 
let the knowledge affect his conduct. Referring in one of 
his letters to " some men's jealousies," he says, "I value that 
not. I have never concerned myself in the public, with an 
eye to thanks from those in Scotland, for whose interest I 
have been, and \\ ill be, sincerely concerned ; but if I had 
not more of honesty and principle than some have of charity, 
it is like some affairs might have gone otherwise." His con- 
stant effort was to instil, into the less disciplined minds of 
his compatriots and fellow-churchmen, his own " sweet rea- 
sonableness." " Pray let Will Dunlop know these news," he 
writes in a letter to his cousin Hamilton of Hallcraigs,t which 
contains some tidings pleasing to the Presbyterians ; " but 
let not our people be vain, but carry with modesty." Again, 

* Daliymple. Appendix, vol. ii. p. 207, &c. 

f Carstares had five aunts of the Glanderston family ; of whom Ursula 
married Ealston of Ealston ; Jean, Hamilton of Hallcraigs ; Margaret, 
Zachary Boyd, and James Durham ; Agnes, Porterfield of Quarreltoun ; 
and Elizabeth, the Eev. Alexander Dunlop, father of William. Caldwell 
Papers. Introductory Memoir. 



230 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

he says, " There can be no great satisfaction in men bringing 
themselves into inconveniencies by doing anything that is 
not absolute duty, and the forbearing whereof is not sinful." 
His letters during this winter of 1692-3, to Dunlop, and 
Hamilton of Hallcraigs (who was one of the Lords of Ses- 
sion) are not specially interesting ; and refer chiefly to the 
universities, and to sundry benefactions and appointments, 
which his friends and kindred seem to have very freely 
sought at his hands, and in regard to all of which he evi- 
dently spared no pains to satisfy their expectations. Some- 
times he seems a little worried by their pressure. " I wonder," 
he remonstrates on one occasion, in a letter to Dunlop, " how 
you should think that I am capable to serve [name illegible] ? 
I am sure, if I should meddle in all affairs recommended to 
me by friends, I should soon incapacitate myself to do any 
service at all. I will do for him what I can, but I will pro- 
mise no success." Again, writing to Hallcraigs : " The Laird 
of Macfarlan must be preferred to my uncle,* for reasons 
which the Secretary hath told me, if the business be not 
already done ; and I know the Secretary will do for my 
uncle another way." 

When the Scottish Parliament was about to meet, Car- 
stares, who was going again to attend the King in Flanders, 
writes to Dunlop; on the 28th of March, 1693 :— 

" I must desire you would do me the favour to supply my 
place in attending His Majesty's Commissioner and the Par- 
liament, this ensuing session ; and I hope, my Lord Duke, when 
you acquaint his Grace with it, will approve my choice . . . 
The King hath granted me Kilmarnock's ward,f — but this to 
yourself and my other good trusties, for it must be in another's 
name ; and I am apt to think it will have much to do to defray 
two campaigns ; but I have a very good master." The re- 
ferences to the need of money and expensiveness of his 
mode of living, which occur in his letters, would appear to 

* Captain James Mure, of Ballybregach, in the county Down, 
t Earl of Kilmarnock, a minor, father of the Earl who was beheaded in 
1746. 



XIII.] BATTLE OF LANDEN. 231 

have been the result, not of any love of filthy lucre, but of a 
freedom in expenditure, and inattention to pecuniary details, 
occasionally exposing him to the inconveniences of impe- 
cuniosity. " He was such a despiser of money," says the 
editor of his nephew, Professor William Dunlop's, sermons, 
"and such a lover of hospitality and charity, that, notwith- 
standing all the opportunities he had of becoming rich if he 
had inclined to it, he had nothing at his death to leave his 
lady — a person of singular worth, and with whom he lived 
in all the sweetest endearments of conjugal affection — but 
her own patrimony, which he was careful to reserve for such 
an event."* 

He crossed, early in April, to Rotterdam, joined the King 
at Loo, and accompanied him to the camp near Lou vain. 
He thus describes the great battle of Lanclen, writing from 
the camp on the 24th of July : — " Upon Tuesday last about 
three in the afternoon, the enemy began to appear, and did 
that night place themselves in several posts before our lines. 
We did also dispose our army to the best advantage against 
any attack.- Our baggage was sent away that evening — the 
King himself sleeping for two or three hours in his coach 
upon the field. The next morning, betwixt four and five, we 
began to play with our cannon, and betwixt eight and nine 
we came to small shot, which continued till about two in the 
afternoon, at which time, or a little after, we were forced to 
quit the field, being overpowered by the French — who had 
forty battalions of foot more than we, and so near double our 
number ; and yet we were once in a fair way to carry the day, 
so bravely did our men behave themselves. Our King, during 
the whole action, exposed himself to all hazards, in giving 
necessary orders everywhere ; and himself, in the greatest 
heat of the action, led on some squadrons of horse to en- 
courage them thereby to do their duty. A part of the fringe 
of his scarf was shot away, but himself is, blessed be God, 
in safety. My Lord Portland carried very well upon this 

* 'Sermons by the learned William Dunlop, late Regius Professor "of 
Divinity, &c., in the University of Edinburgh/ 1722. Preface. 



232 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

occasion ; he is wounded in both his hands. Count Solms 
hath his foot shot off by a cannon ball. The Duke of Ormoud 
is wounded and prisoner, and the Duke of Berwick is pri- 
soner with us. We have not lost many men, and our army 
is getting together apace, and in a few days we shall be 
stronger than before, for we had detached from our army, 
before the fight, 20,000 men, who will now join us ; and then 
we shall, as is thought, go after the enemy, who certainly 
hath a much greater loss than we, and is, we believe, put 
much out of capacity to do great things this year. This, to 
the best of my knowledge, is a true, tho' short, account of 
this affair, in which the King hath indeed appeared very 
great. Adieu. My dear love to sisters. This will tell you 
I am well, tho' I was upon the field to the last." 

This was the great event of the campaign. In October 
the King returned to England. While at the Hague, wait- 
ing for a fair wind, Carstares had the pleasure of attending 
the marriage of his brother, at Hotter dam. Alexander, he 
says, is " oppressed with business. The bride seems to 
be of a good temper, and a discreet manager." He took 
up his quarters again in London, for the winter. "I could 
wish you were here," he writes to Dunlop, "could you 
have your expenses borne; your university affairs would 
go the better, and you should have nutmeg for your punch." 
The Principal, however, had a good office to perform at 
Glasgow in celebrating the marriage of another of the 
family, Katherine, whose " marriage warrant," dated the 
14th of February, 1694, bears that she is to be married, by 
Principal Dunlop, to the Kev. John Law. Carstares sends 
her a present of £20 before the wedding, and promises Mrs. 
Dunlop, who had, presumably, been desirous to w 7 ear a head- 
dress of the latest fashion on the occasion, " we shall send 
down that head suit you mention." 

Among the many scurrilous pamphlets which the rival 
Scotch factions discharged at each other, one was published 
in 1693, with the title, ' The Spirit of Calumny and Slander 
examined, chastised, and exposed, in a letter to a malicious 



XIII.] OLD SLANDERS REVIVED. 233 

Libeller.' To this was appended ' A Letter from a Gentleman 
in Scotland to his Friend in London,' which bore the initials 
" W. P.," and was generally ascribed to Sir William Paterson. 
In this letter the writer took occasion to refer to the old story of 
the Kye-house Plot and the trial of Jerviswood. Baillie, the 
Campbells of Cessnock, Carstares, and the rest, he declared, 
all professed their innocence of any plotting with such ap- 
parent sincerity, and with such " imprecations," that he 
actually believed them ; and yet, he adds, " Carstares upon 
the first application of the thumbscrew — even the first touch 
of it — confessed all, as may be seen in his printed confes- 
sion."* Carstares naturally resented this mendacious attempt 
to malign him. The records of Parliament already bore that 
he had been grossly deceived and injured in the misuse made 
of his ' Confession '; but his conduct in the chamber of tor- 
ture had been witnessed by only a few, and of the few but 
one or two remained, who would be likely to help him to prove 
that his slanderer was lying. The Duke of Queensberry was 
one of these. He had been King James's Lord Treasurer, 
and though turned out of office because he would not concur 
in the King's quasi-tolerant policy, he had remained a Tory, 
and since the Eevolution had made no advances to the 
existing government. His testimony would be impartial, 
and above suspicion. Carstares accordingly asked a friend in 
Edinburgh to wait upon the Duke, and to obtain his opinion 
of the statement in the * Letter from a Gentleman in Scotland 
to his Friend in London.' His correspondent writes in reply, 
on the 22nd of February :• — 

"I have been to see the D. of Queensb., whose indisposition 
(for he is indeed very ill) keeps him in the country. After I had 
some occasion to name you, I told him what had happened, and 
what a letter Sir Will. Paterson had written of you, and which 
had been printed. He presently took the same apprehension I told 
you formerly that I had of it, but added — with a great oath — ' It has 
been the knave, his brother,! has made him do it, for I see it has 

* « Spirit of Calumny, &c.,' p. 67. 

t The Bishop of Edinburgh, promoted in 1688 to the Archbishopric of 
Glasgow. 



234 WILLIAM CAB STARES. [Chap. 

been of design to bring a reproach on the poor man, and I consider 
not Sir William such a fool as that he would be persuaded by any- 
other body, but by his brother, to do such an ill thing.' As to the 
matter, he bade me tell you that it was so far from being true that 
you denied with any sort of imprecation, and that upon the first 
offering of the torture you acknowledged what you had denied : — that 
first, he never heard you make any imprecations ; that it was never 
so much as said in the Secret Committee that you had made any, 
but, upon the contrary, that you would say nothing, and that he 
did not think it possible that any man could endure what you did 
with so little perturbation, and that notwithstanding of it you 
said nothing, and would say nothing ; — that the day following the 
Secret Committee met in the Treasury Chamber, where the resolu- 
tion taken was to put you so severely to it as that either you should 
discover, or die under it. Upon which he said, ' I perceive he will 
rather die under it. Pray,' said he, ' let me send to him and tell 
him his hazard, and that if he will deny upon oath, he shall be set 
at liberty, and that it shall never rise in judgment against him, 
but that any evidence that we conceive we have against him shall 
be supprest ' (for they had something, particularly a key of Earl 
Argyll's cipher, which they judged written by your hand) ; and, 
on the other hand, that if you would make any discovery, it should 
not be brought as an evidence against any man. Upon which the 
then Treasurer Depute, Melfort, was sent to you, — that he himself 
afterward came to see you, with the then Chancellor, after he had 
persuaded them to let you be sent to the Castle, as a place of better 
air, and where you should be as securely kept, for he was then 
governor of it. He bade me present his service to you and to tell 
you that he looks upon that whole account as a cunningly devised 
trick to defame you, and that he will own this to anybody that shall, 
at any time, happen to speak to him of it." 

The letter then diverges to an account of the doings of 
" that madman, Hepburn/' a fanatic preacher, who had been 
received into the Church, but who retained the vagrant and 
disorderly habits of his Cameronian associates. " Having a 
great fervency in expression," says Carstares' correspondent, 
" and unweariable lungs, are mistaken by the poor ignorant 
for zeal and piety." * 

It was in the spring of this year, 1694, that the incident 

* Murray Dunlop MSS. 



XIIL] 1694. 235 

occurred which has had a dramatic prominence, next to the 
scene of his torture, in the vague popular recollections of 
Carstares' life. The story is told, simply and effectively, by 
McCormick, and (with due deference to Mr. Hill Burton's 
scepticism)* there seems little reason to doubt its truth. It is 
not one that McCormick or any one else was likely to invent ; 
nor is it one for which there could be the formal documentary 
evidence, which Mr. Grub desires for its verification.t The 
only persons who could give the details were Carstares and 
King William, and the latter certainly would not think of 
committing them to writing. But it is natural to suppose 
that they may have descended to McCormick (who was Car- 
stares' grand-nephew) in memoranda preserved by Carstares 
or his kindred ; or in oral narrative ; and that they were 
recorded by him as he received them from his mother and 
grandmother. M'Cormick was a clergyman of high character, 
and published his book within sixty years of his grand-uncle's 
death ; and it is absurd to imagine that he would have de- 
liberately introduced into it, amidst grave matters of political 
and ecclesiastical history, a fiction or a legend. The inci- 
dent is that of Carstares' intercepting the royal despatches 
to the Commissioner of the General Assembly of 1694. 

The summary dissolution of the Assembly of 1692 had 
caused much ill-feeling ; encouraging the disaffected Episco- 
palians; grieving the sober, and exasperating the violent, 
among the Presbyterians. " During the following part of that 
year " — to quote the ' Memorial of the Affairs of the Church,' 
among the Graham Dunlop MSS. — " notwithstanding all 
these provocations, the judicatories of the Church not only 
forbore censuring any more of the Episcopal clergy, but took 
some of them in," — among others Laurence Charteris — " and 
upon terms in effect the same with the formula, except that 
they owned the Confession of Faith as lelieving it, — for here 
the great objection against the formula \ ceaseth. But the 
Church by doing it in this manner does not subject itself to 

* Hill Burton, from 1688, vol. i. p. 235. f Grub, vol. iii. p. 333. 

% Suggested by the King. 



236 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

the consequences of taking in all that shall barely apply." 
But while the Church's procedure was thus peaceable and 
moderate, the Legislature did what it could to provide the 
materials of new discords. The Parliament of 1693 devised 
in addition to the Oath of Allegiance, an " Oath of Assur- 
ance," which it imposed on all the clergy, Presbyterian and 
Episcopal, as a condition of their holding office. The Oath 
of Assurance bound the swearer to acknowledge William as 
king de jure, as well as de facto ; and it was at once odious 
to the Presbyterian, as an unwarrantable encroachment on a 
region with which " Caesar " had no right to meddle ; and to 
the Episcopalian, as implying " a solemn disavowal of here- 
ditary right."* 

The risk of uproar and disturbance seemed but to be in- 
creased by an Act which bore the soothing name of ' An 
Act for settling the quiet and peace of the Church.' The 
Church threatened that it would not be quieted on the 
Parliament's terms. The Act declared that all Episcopal 
ministers who should take the oaths of Allegiance and Assur- 
ance, subscribe the Confession, and acknowledge the Presby- 
terian government, should be entitled to claim admission to 
the church courts; while all who should not thus qualify 
might be deposed ; and all who should were to be protected 
in their parishes, until regularly received into the ecclesias- 
tical judicatories.! The Act further demanded the calling 
of a General Assembly, the Parliament beiug, no doubt, ap- 
prehensive of a collision between the civil and ecclesiastical 
jurisdictions, if the Assembly should take the initiative, and 
meet without the royal warrant. The oaths and the Act set 
the whole Church in a ferment. That Parliament should 
impose civil oaths as conditions of clergymen holding office, 
or doing duty, was as black Erastianism as that of Charles or 
James. That the Assembly should be summoned in accord- 
ance with a Parliamentary vote, and not in virtue of the 
Church's inherent right of meeting and deliberating, was an 

* Laing's ' History,' vol. iv. p. 256. 

t Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 304. Grub, vcl. iii. p. 330, &c. 



XIIL] OATH OF ASSURAXCE. 237 

outrage on its liberty. Who gave the elected King autho- 
rity to decide that no one should sit in that Assembly, unless 
he should first swear that the elected was his rightful sove- 
reign ? Or what right had he to prescribe terms of depo- 
sition, or to promise to interpose his protection to men 
unrecognised and unsanctioned by the Church ? Why 
should not the Assembly meet on its own day, and ignore 
the interference both of Parliament and King? But the 
growl of gathering wrath in Scotland did not echo to Ken- 
sington. Sinister influences, it was alleged, were in tem- 
porary ascendancy there. The King had been listening to 
Tarbat, whose personal leanings were towards Episcopacy, and 
who looked on the heats and squabbles of rival ecclesiastics 
with the Laodicean indifference of a man of the world, and 
the impatience of a statesman who knew how much they re- 
tarded national prosperity ; and to the Master of Stair, to 
whose cool and selfish judgment churches, sects, parties, prin- 
ciples, were only so many pieces on the great chess-board 
whereon he played his wary game, to be moved hither and 
thither, or swept aside, as best should suit his purposes. 

The King called an Assembly, and sent down orders that 
the ministers must subscribe the Assurance before they took 
their seats, and that, if they refused to do so, the Assembly 
was to be dissolved. 

The King seemed firm. The Presbyterian ministers, in- 
flamed with a sense of injury, and supported by the expressed 
sympathy of the English nonconformists, were resolved to 
stand firm too.* Lord Carmichael was the Commissioner, and 
to him the royal commands' were sent. At this juncture, in 
the month of March, it is said that Carstares had obtained 
leave of absence, and was not in attendance at Court. We 
are now ready to take up the narrative of McCormick, who 
shall tell his story in his own words : — 

"Upon Lord Carmichael's arriving in Edinburgh, and 
communicating his orders to some of the clergy in town, he 

* Burton, from 1688, vol. i. p. 232. McCormick, p. 52. 



238 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap. 

found them obstinate in their resolutions not to comply. 
They assured him that their sentiments upon the subject 
were the same with those of all their brethren in the 
country ; and that, if this measure were persisted in, it would 
spread a flame over the country, which it would not be in 
the power of such as had given his Majesty these counsels 
to extinguish. 

"The commissioner saw that all his attempts to bring 
them to better temper would be vain and fruitless. At the 
same time, he was sensible that the dissolution of the 
assembly would not only prove fatal to the church of Scot- 
land, to which he was a real friend, but also to his Majesty's 
interest in that kingdom. From a sincere regard to both, 
therefore, he undertook to lay the matter, as it stood, fairly 
before the King ; and, for that purpose, sent off a flying 
packet, which he expected to return from London, with the 
King's final determination, the night before the assembly 
was appointed to meet. At the same time, the clergy sent 
up a memorial to Mr. Carstares, urging him to use his good 
offices, in this critical conjuncture, for the preservation of 
that church which he had so active a hand in establishing. 

" The flying packet arrived at Kensington in the forenoon 
of that day upon which Mr. Carstares returned. But, before 
his arrival, his Majesty, by the advice of Lord Stair and 
Lord Tarbat, who represented this obstinacy of the clergy as 
an act of rebellion against his government, had renewed his 
instructions to the commissioner, and sent them off by the 
same packet. 

" When Mr. Carstares came to Kensington and received 
his letters, he immediately inquired what was the nature of 
the despatches his Majesty had sent off for Scotland ; and, 
upon learning their contents, he went directly, and, in his 
Majesty's name, required %he messenger, who was just setting 
off, to deliver them up to him. It was now late at night ; 
and, as lie knew no time was to be lost, (the general assem- 
bly being to sit in a few days) he ran to his Majesty's apart- 
ment ; and, being informed by the Lord in waiting that he 



XIIL] INTERCEPTED DISPATCH. 239 

was gone to bed, he told him, it was a matter of the last 
importance which had brought him at that unseasonable 
hour, and that he must see the King. 

" Upon entering the chamber, he found his Majesty fast 
asleep, upon which, turning aside the curtain, and falling 
down upon his knees, he gently awaked him. The King, 
astonished to see him at so late an hour, and in this posture 
by his bed-side, asked him what was the matter ? He 
answered, he had come to ask his life. And is it possible, 
said the King, that you have been guilty of a crime that 
deserves death ? He acknowledged he had, and then pro- 
duced the despatches he had brought back from the mes- 
senger. And have you, says the King, with a severe frown, 
have you indeed presumed to countermand my orders ? Mr. 
Carstares then begged leave only to be heard a few words, 
and he was ready to submit to any punishment his Majesty 
should think proper to inflict. He said, 

" ' That the King had now known him long, and knew his 
entire fidelity and attachment to his person and government. 
Some of his servants in Scotland might find it their interest 
to impose upon his Majesty, to screen themselves from his 
merited displeasure. Others might, under the mask of zeal 
for his service, seek only to gratify their own private resent- 
ments ; and, whilst they pretended to conciliate all parties 
to his government, might pursue such measures as would 
only unite them in opposing it. 

" ' That this was the foundation of all those factions which 
had hitherto rent that kingdom, and made its crown sit so 
uneasy upon his head : That, for his own part, he could call 
God to witness, that, ever since he entered into his Majesty's 
service, he had no interest, for he could have none, separate 
from that of his master : That, though he had been educated 
a presbyterian, and, on that account, had a natural bias to 
this form of church-government ; yet his Majesty knew, 
that, when he recommended the establishment of presbytery 
in Scotland, he did it, because he was firmly persuaded the 
Presbyterians were the only friends his Majesty had in that 



240 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

country : That his regard to their principles had not rendered 
him blind to their faults : That he had been aware of the 
indiscreet use they would make of the liberal concessions in 
their favour in Lord Melville's parliament, and had freely 
given his sentiments upon that head : That, with the same 
freedom, he had remonstrated against the precipitate mea- 
sures adopted in the last session of parliament, under the 
pretext of correcting the errors of the former : That the 
effects had justified his opinion of both. The first had 
alienated all the episcopals, the last, great part of the pres- 
byterians, from his administration. One thing alone was 
wanting to complete the wishes of his enemies, and that was, 
to cement the two parties by one common bond of union: 
That nothing could be better calculated for this purpose 
than the advice which had been given to his Majesty to push 
the administration of the oaths to the ministers before the 
sitting down of the assembly: That, although there was 
nothing unreasonable in what his Majesty required, yet some 
who had credit with them had fallen upon methods to 
represent their compliance as inconsistent with their prin- 
ciples, and had been so far successful, that they were 
determined not to comply: That, however unjustifiable in 
other respects their conduct might be, it proceeded from no 
disaffection to his person and government ; and that, whilst 
this was the case, it was more for his Majesty's interest to 
confirm their attachment, by dispensing with the rigour of 
the law, than to lose their affections by enforcing it. What 
avail oaths and promises to a Prince, when he has lost the 
hearts of his subjects ? Now was the time, therefore, to 
retrieve his affairs in that kingdom : That, by countermand- 
ing the instructions he had sent down to his commissioner, 
he conferred the highest obligations upon the whole body of 
the presbyterian clergy, gratified all his friends in that 
kingdom, and effectually thwarted the insidious arts of his 
and their enemies.' 

"The King heard him with great attention, and, when he 
had done, gave him the despatches to read, and desired him 



XIIL] KING'S CONCESSION. 241 

to throw them in the fire ; after which, he bid him draw up 
the instructions to the commissioner in what terms he 
pleased, and he would sign them. Mr. Carstares immediately 
wrote to the commissioner, signifying, that it was his Majesty's 
pleasure to dispense with putting the oaths to the ministers ; 
and, when the King had signed it, he immediately despatched 
the messenger, who, by being detained so many hours longer 
than he intended, did not arrive in Edinburgh till the morn- 
ing of the day fixed for the sitting of the assembly. 

" By this time, both the commissioner and the clergy were 
in the utmost perplexity. He was obliged to dissolve the 
assembly ; they were determined to assert their own autho- 
rity, independent of the civil magistrate. Both of them were 
apprehensive of the consequences, and looked upon the 
event of this day's contest as decisive with respect to the 
church of Scotland ; when, to their inexpressible joy, they 
were relieved by the return of the packet, countermanding 
the dissolution of the assembly. Next to the establishment 
of presbytery in Scotland, no act of King William's adminis- 
tration endeared him so much to the presbyterians as this. 
They considered it as a certain proof that his own inclina- 
tions were altogether favourable to them, and that any 
difficulties they laboured under ought to be imputed to his 
ministers, not to himself. It was soon understood what part 
Mr. Carstares had acted upon this occasion ; it gave him 
entire credit with the whole body of the presbyterians, who 
had of late begun to suspect that he had deserted their 
cause ; and it was gratefully acknowledged by most of the 
clergy after he came to reside in Scotland. In one instance, 
indeed, he was obliged to put them in remembrance of it. 
When some of his zealous brethren, in the heat of debate in a 
general assembly, charged him with want of zeal for the 
interest of the church of Scotland ; which provoked him to 
such a degree, that, in spite of his natural modesty and 
coolness of temper, he rose up, and begged leave, in justice 
to his own character, to observe, ' That such a reflection came 
with a very bad grace from any man who sate in that court, 

E 



242 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

which, under God, owed its existence to his interposition : 
That if ever, in any one instance, his zeal had carried him 
beyond the bounds of discretion, it was in favour of the 
church of Scotland : That he never had received a frown 
from the greatest and the best of masters but one, and it 
was on her account/ " 

This incident marked a crisis in the history of the Church. 
Henceforth the Presbyterians believed in William's honesty 
and goodwill, as they had not believed before. They were 
now convinced of his firm intention to maintain Presbytery, 
and of their own secure position. Conscious of a confirmed 
power, they were able to use it with greater generosity. The 
Assembly proceeded to receive, and empowered its commis- 
sion also to receive, the Episcopal clergy who should apply 
for reception in the terms of the recent Act. Those who 
thus conformed were amicably admitted. 

Many of those who would not conform were allowed, and 
even entitled, under the protection of an Act of the next 
Parliament of 1695, to remain, and to officiate in their 
parishes ; though, of course, debarred from a place in the 
Presbyteries, Synods and Assemblies, in which the Presby- 
terian government was vested. The waste and empty places 
were gradually reached, and filled up. In the North, where 
Episcopacy still was strong, force was no longer employed to 
expel Episcopal, or to intrude Presbyterian, incumbents. 
The complete organization of one homogeneous establishment 
was left to the healing and restoring influences of time. 
That no harsh pressure was used to hasten the action of 
these, and that the policy and practice of the Church were 
vastly more lenient after the Ke volution than after the 
Eestoration, is sufficiently attested by the fact that even as 
late as 1710, there were 113 Episcopal ministers, of whom 
nine had not even taken the oaths to government, still 
ministers of parishes ;* and that the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper was not celebrated in Aberdeen, according to the Pres- 

* Leven and Melville Papers, Preface, p. xxx. 



XIII.] SCOTCH EPISCOPACY. 243 

byterian use, until the year 1704.* The Episcopal Church, as 
a church, was now, however, entirely broken up. Those of its 
clergy who conformed were henceforth politically powerless, 
and were merged, more or less completely, in the Establish- 
ment.t Those who kept aloof, and who maintained a furtive 
relation to the surviving bishops of the deprived Episcopate, 
became, in the natural development of the tendency we have 
already marked, a body of political dissidents, whose bond 
of union was primarily Jacobitism, and only in an inferior 
degree, Episcopacy. The exiled King was their raison d'etre, 
and not a theory of church government. It is perhaps unwel- 
come to the so-called High Churchmen of the present day, 
in Scotland, to acknowledge that they owe their ecclesiastical 
lineage to a dethroned oppressor, more than to an apostolic 
succession ; but so it is. The lonely exile at St. Germain's was 
the true source, the fons et origo, of the Scotch Episcopacy of 
the eighteenth century. The Scotch Episcopacy of the nine- 
teenth has no longer any sympathy with, in few cases has 
it any accurate knowledge of, its own historical ancestry. It 
is not now Jacobite in sentiment ; and, although among the 
aristocracy and landed gentry it is frequently Tory in politics, 
it is not always so. It retains no relic or recollection of its 
old Scotch simplicity of ritual, and of its Calvinistic creed. 
It has adopted the English Articles; and, of late, has 
echoed, in a thin voice, the emphatic protest of the modern 
Tractarians against the " Evangelicalism " of the first quarter 
of this century. It has clothed itself with all the forms of 
Anglicanism of which it could lay hold. It owes its vitality 

* ' Spalding Club Miscellany,' vol. ii. ; Preface, pp. 72-3. This was no 
worse than earlier omissions and irregularities. In Glasgow between 1615 
and the Eestoration, there were only six celebrations of the communion ; 
and betwixt the Eestoration and the Revolution only two. St. Andrews 
and Edinburgh were not much better. See Sprott and Leishman's ' Eook 
of Common Order and Director}-,' p. 346. 

t In addition to those already included, Burnet states that about seventy 
were received in 1695. Burnet's editor quotes the ' London Gazette,' No. 
3122, to the effect that the number was about a hundred. Burnet, vol. iv. 
p. 282, and note. 

B 2 



244 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

mainly to imitation of English fashion, or the modified repro- 
duction of Anglican modes of thought and feeling ; and by- 
reason of the bareness of Presbyterian ritual, it has gained 
a hold on minds whose aesthetic culture that ritual does not 
attract ; but it is still, as it has always been, essentially an 
alien on Scottish soil. In as far as it is the religion of Tory- 
ism, it is still as opposed to Scottish Liberalism as it was in 
1688. As the religion of Prelacy and Sacerdotalism, it has no 
power whatever over the mind of Scotland ; and it exerts no 
appreciable force in any of the great movements of thought, 
whether theological or political. That midnight interview of 
Carstares and William decided that, for evil or for good, 
Scotland in future was to be emphatically Presbyterian.* 

* Since writing the above I have found in one of the volumes of the 
Wodrow MSS. (8vo. lxxxii., Advocate's Library) a narrative of "remark- 
able occurents" by a certain Mr. J. B., who was born at Glasgow in 1676, 
and became a minister of the Church. J. B. relates the proceedings which 
led to the summoning of this Assembly and the exaction of the oath, the 
blame of which he lays on Dalrymple and Tarbat. 

After the malign instructions were sent down to Edinburgh, Portland, 
Mr. Secretary Johnstone, and Master William Carstares, the King's 
Chaplain were, he says, "not idle at Court to get a counter instruction; 
but all their solicitations were to no purpose till at length Johnstone, with 
much resolution and braver} T , addressed the King one evening as he was 
going in his night-gown to his bedchamber." The King then gave in ; a 
new dispatch was sent off, and reached Edinburgh at 4 a.m. on Thursday, 
the 29th March, the day on which the Assembly was to meet. 

I have not been able, even with the aid of Mr. Laing, to identify J. B., 
and therefore can offer no opinion as to the value of his statement as com- 
pared with that of McCormick ; but it is right the reader should have 
it laid before him. Valeat quantum. 



XLY.l . 245 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Correspondence — Darien Scheme — Ministerial Changes — Death of 
William. 

The ' State Papers ' preserved by McCorrnick contain little 
beside the letters received by Carstares. His own letters in 
reply to those addressed to hira by the Scotch public men and 
officers of state, if still extant, seem to be altogether out of 
sight and reach. Scarce any are accessible except those 
written to Dunlop and his more private friends. The loss of 
so large and important a collection of letters, as his general 
correspondence must have formed, is much to be regretted. 
Those that we have show us the tenor of his life and personal 
history plainly enough, his watchful interest in the affairs of 
the Scotch Church and State, his constant attendance on 
^Yilliam. He was again with him in his annual visit to 
Holland, and campaign in the Low Countries in 1694. From 
k£ the camp at Rousselaer " he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, on the 
30th of August, 1694. . . . '•' The distinct accounts he [Dun- 
lop] sent to me of the proceedings of the Committee in the 
North * hath done us more service than it is fit for me, at 
this distance, to write of. . . . We have had no battles this 
campaign as yet, but we have, by the marches of our army, 
forced the enemy to live upon their own country ; and this 
place where we now are belongs to their jurisdiction. Huy 
is besieged by a part of our forces. Your husband will know 
the place. . . . My brother Alexander crows over me, for he 
hath a John Carstares, who, I know, will be a darling of 
yours. I bless the Lord I have my health well." 

The death of Mary, on the 28th of December, 1694, was 
* The Commission empowered by the Assembly of 1694. 



2 1 6 WILLIAM CAR STARES. [Chap. 

a heavy blow to King William, and threw him more than 
ever into exclusive intercourse with a few faithful and tried 
friends immediately around him, of whom Carstares was one. 
His ungracious distaste to English society and his phleg- 
matic reserve increased. "The Princess of Orange's popular 
affability ," says Caryll, " did in some measure appease, or at 
least cover, the general disgust conceived against him : but 
she being dead, nothing can hinder an increase of aversion 
between him and the people." * The summer abroad was, 
perhaps, the only period of his lonely and silent life that he 
found enjoyable. In it he escaped from the unstable friend- 
ship and covert dislike of the English ; he was among his 
trusty friends and compatriots ; he had before his eye the 
familiar scenes of his level fatherland ; he was braced by the 
keen excitements of war and danger. 

We have a few of Carstares' letters while he was with the 
King during the more eventful campaign of 1695. 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" At the camp before Namur, 

" July 8, 1G95. 

... "I am very kindly received here, and am as much for 
calm methods in Parliament as ever. If your Assembly do not sit, 
the King is not to blame. We have this evening made a vigor- 
ous and successful attack upon the outworks of the town, and have 
gained most, if not all, of them. What our loss of men is I know 
not." 

The Scottish Parliament had met in May. Hamilton was 
no more. He had died during the winter, and Lord Tweed- 
dale, the Chancellor, succeeded the Duke as Commissioner. 
The tragedy of Glencoe had by this time been noised abroad. 
Party spite and national feeling were alike inflamed by it, 
and the general indignation chiefly concentrated itself on 
the Master of Stair. 

The King had yielded to the inevitable force of public 

* Macpherson's ' State Papers,' vol. i. p. 510. See also Burnet, vol. iv. 
pp. 403, 442. 



XIV.] CAMPAIGN OF 1695. 247 

opinion, so far as to appoint a commission of inquiry ; but 
this measure of incipient justice was popularly thought too 
limited, and likely to be used in a way too favourable to the 
now detested Secretary of State. 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" Dear brother, I wonder I hear not from you : I wrote to you 
some posts ago. The town of Namur is surrendered,* the capitu- 
lation being signed this day, which makes amends for the infamous 

surrender of Dixmuyd and Deinse I hear you have a story 

with you that I concerted matters with the Master of Stair at Rot- 
terdam, and tarried there for him. I tell you, in short, it is a 
notorious forgery ; for I knew nothing of his being on this side till 
I was within three leagues of this place, and saw him not till I 
came hither. Such methods of malicious defaming men will not, I 
hope, hold out long." 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" Sombreffe, Aug. 29, 1695. 
" I wonder I have had none from yon, but one, all this campaign, 
— not so much as to give me notice of the death of my dear sister 
Katherine. . . . We have had, in the singular goodness of God, 
hitherto a very successful campaign. The siege of Namur, as cir- 
cumstances were, having been one of the greatest enterprises of this 
age. We had just reason to detain the darling Mareschall f of 
Madam Maintenon prisoner, — whatever was the capitulation, while 
the French have kept no measures of faith or cartel with our King, 
who, by this action, shews the French King that he neither values 
nor dreads bis resentments. As to the Assembly — I would willingly 
know, so soon as is possible (what Mr. Blair and yourself can say 
upon good grounds), that if it meet, the Episcopal clergy will not be 
at all meddled with at this time. You may easily judge I have reason 

* The town of Namur was retaken from the French under Boufflers, by 
William, on the 6th of August. Villeroy, who had succeeded to Luxem- 
bourg's command (Luxembourg having died since the last campaign), had 
gained Dixmuyd and Deinse, on terms discreditable to the conquered. 
See Macaulay, vol. vii. chap. 21. 

f Boufflers. He surrendered the citadel of Namur on the 26th of 
August, and was detained a prisoner in reprisal for the French breach of 
faith, in sending the garrisons of Dixmuyd and Deinse prisoners into 
France. 



248 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

to be informed of this, while if it shall meet, the burden of the 
consequences of it is like to fall upon me ; for it is adjourned to 
such a time that the King must determine all things concerning it 
ere he go to England, and I dare not say that he will incline to do 
it, — and if it should be again adjourned, I know it will be uneasy to 
many, and, it is like, will add too to the load of reproaches cast 
upon me : — but I shall honestly use my endeavours to have you 
satisfied. I cannot think that the adjournment of it to such a time 
was with any design to put the thorn in my foot ; but it was about 
the 7th of November ere the King arrived in England last year. . . 
My dear love to sisters and my brother Law. I cannot but upon 
many accounts lament his loss and our own. I shall only add, 
dear brother, that I am heartily concerned for the true interest 
of my country, as to the present constitution of our Church in 
it, and its civil interest : and I have no reason, with a respect to 
these, to repent of what were my methods and advices, which have 
exposed me so much to the resentment of some and obloquy of others, 
and do, as I hear, so still. Adieu." 

There seems to have been, in some minds in Scotland, a 
still jealous dread of the King's adjourning the Assembly, as 
he had already done more than once, beyond a twelvemonth 
from the date of its last meeting, and thus setting at naught 
the Church's claim to hold its Assembly every year. After 
his return to London, Carstares writes reassuring Dun] op on 
this point. " I know nothing to the contrary but the As- 
sembly will sit, but it is said that there will be a great diffi- 
culty to find a man you have confidence in to be a commis- 
sioner ; honest men having such an aversion from it 

It is not in my power to serve my cousin Capt. Mure, except 
I stir up a hive of bees about my ears. He is indeed hardly 
dealt with, and I am sorry I cannot help him." 

In another short note dated merely " Monday at one of the 
clock in the morning," he says, " Mr. Alsop prayed this day 
very heartily for your Assembly, and begged that all the 
devices of Tobiahs and Sanballats against it might be disap- 
pointed ; and Secretary Johnston desires me to tell you that 
he wisheth your Assembly may be worth the praying for." 
The Assembly met in December, and did but little harm or 






XIV.] MASTER OF STAIR. 249 

good. The agony of the struggle between the rival churches 
was over now, and the chances of a rupture between the 
ecclesiastical and civil establishments had com,e to a crisis, 
which, thanks to Carstares' interposition, had passed safely. 
The result was that the action of the Assembly, and of the 
other church courts, was felt to be of less importance, and 
drew less attention, than hitherto. Political and commercial 
questions, into which the odium tlieologicum did not enter, 
began to occupy the foreground. 

The commission of inquiry into Glencoe had reported ; and 
the Estates had, in a memorial to the King, invited him to 
give effect to the commission's severe judgment on the 
conduct of the Master of Stair and Breadalbane.* The 
Highland Earl was left unpunished ; but the Secretary of 
State had to pay the light penalty of dismissal from his 
office. It was scandalously disproportioned to the crime ; 
and so conscious was Dalrymple himself of its insufficiency 
in his countrymen's opinion, that, on his father's death, this 
year, he did not venture to provoke their enmity by taking 
his seat, as a peer, in parliament. The popular discontent, at 
his inadequate punishment, was no wise mitigated by the 
popular suspicion, that the King's displeasure was not so 
much due to a just indignation at a disgraceful crime, as to a 
Dutch jealousy of the golden promises of a new era of 
prosperity for Scotland. Lord Tweeddale, the Chancellor 
and Commissioner, and Secretary Johnston, were also 
turned out of office, though they had had nothing to do 
with the Highland massacre. The head and front of their 
offending was their connection, in which Dalrymple also 
had a share, with the Darien scheme. f 

* The report, which is in McCormick's collection, pp. 236-54, acquits 
the King — "there was nothing in the King's instructions to warrant the 
foresaid slaughter " — but lays the chief blame on Dalrymple, whose letters 
were " no ways warranted " by the King's instructions, and appear to have 
been the " only cause " of the slaughter, " which, in effect, was a barbarous 
murder." 

f On Darien, see Burton, from 1688, vol. i. chap. viii. ; Macaulay, vol. 
viii. chap xxiv. ; Dalrymple, part iii. book vi. p. 96. 



250 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

The Scotch were, like the Jews, a people who combined 
with a strong religious faculty, a keen aptitude for finance, 
and love of the profits of commerce. Hitherto their trade 
had been much fettered by their foreign wars and internal 
discords. Only during the years of the Commonwealth, 
had they known the advantages of free participation in the 
larger commercial enterprises of England. But the benefits 
of that period had not been forgotten, although they had 
been lost at the Eestoration ; and the memory of them gave 
a stimulus to the energy and eagerness, with which Pater- 
son's projects for a foreign trade and a settlement at Darien 
were received by his fellow-countrymen. Gorgeous visions 
floated before the fervid national imagination. Darien was 
to be the site of a new and greater Alexandria ; through 
which should roll, to the ports of Scotland, a trade richer 
than that which had flowed from the East to Venice and 
Amsterdam, from South America and the Antilles to Cadiz 
and Seville, from the transatlantic plantations to London and 
Bristol. 

But barring the way of the Jasons who should adventure 
on the accomplishment of these golden dreams, lay the solid 
and sullen commercial privileges and jealousies of England, 
Holland, and Spain — none of which could William venture 
to offend, even had he desired to do so, for the sake of his 
poor and unprofitable northern kingdom. 

The English Parliament lost no time in addressing the 
King, and representing the disasters that would befall the 
commerce of England, if the Scottish Company, " trading to 
Africa and the Indies," to which the Scottish Parliament * 
had granted a charter, were allowed to execute its designs. 
The answer of the King, was to the effect that he had 
been ill-served in Scotland, but he hoped some remedies 
might be found to prevent the ill consequences that were 
apprehended from this Act. 

" There are no means," says Mr. Hill Burton, " of further 
authenticating this remarkable answer, than by its having 
* 26 June, 1695. 



XIV.] DABIEN. 251 

been generally received uncontradicted." * It receives a 
certain authentication from the paper which follows, and 
which is written in Car stares' hand. The same term is used 
in it as that reported by Burnet. This paper, however, 
appears to have been intended for Scotland, and is probably 
Carstares' suggestion of the despatch which should be 
addressed to the government there.f " The East India Act 
hath occasioned much noise, and made me some trouble. I 
am satisfied if my parliament had foreseen it, they would 
have prevented both ; yet I have reason to say that I have 
been ill served in that matter by some of my ministers, 
whom I employed, — since the instruction I gave contains 
only a warrant for an Act to be the ground of a patent 
in favour of foreign plantations, with such rights and 
privileges as we grant, in like cases, to the subjects of our 
other dominions — the one not interfering with the other; 
but it leaves the granting of the patent to me, to be timed 
and ordered by me as I should see cause, so that I must say 
a patent, by way of Act of Parliament, was a surprise to me, 
having had no notice of it till it was past ; nor had I any 
account of the particulars of it till I returned to England. I 
have also reason to be dissatisfied with some, whom I 
intrusted with the management of my affairs, for their either 
having encouraged — or, at least, not employed themselves in 
earnest endeavours to hinder, according to my express desire 
and order, — those tilings that were the cause of unnecessary 
heats in the Parliament, to the delaying greatly of the public 
business, and making the Session of Parliament longer than 

* Burton, from 1688, vol. i. p. 293. Burnet, vol. iv. p. 292, gives the 
answer as above. 

f The earliest printed quotation of the King's speech that I have seen is 
in a Scotch pamphlet printed in 1700, entitled ' A Short Speech prepared 
to he Spoken by a worthy Member in Parliament,' &c. The author is 
very bitter against the " evil councilors," who have guided the govern- 
ment; and amongst other charges, adduces this — "They have remitted 
£20,000 sterling into Scotland" [for bribes] "which they say Mr. 
Carstares has done by way of Holland, for the more close conveyance, 
and that by my Lord Portland's means." p. 12. 



252 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

was either needful, or was consistent with my instructions ; — 
which is a management, that both the manner of my govern- 
ment, and the quiet and security of my people in that 
kingdom, have obliged me not to let pass without marks of 
my displeasure. I must also recommend to you the 
using of suitable means for the preventing of our people 
being imposed upon, by false suggestions of ill-minded 
men." 

The following paper of Carstares', undated, belongs to the 
same period; some of its suggestions obviously pointing to 
the arrangements rendered necessary by the intended dis- 
missal of the ministers, whose commercial policy had incurred 
his Majesty's disapproval. 

" For the commission of the Great Seal : 

Lord Eosse, 
Lord Carmichael, 
Lord Euthven. 

" His Majesty was pleased to condescend upon the persons above 
mentioned to supply the want of a Chancellor. 

" President of the Council. 

" The King did not positively fix upon any particular person for 
this place. The only persons that I conceive can pretend at 
present to be candidates for it are Earl Melville, Earl Argyll, and 
Earl Annandale. If the first of these be preferred to it, he will be 
acceptable to the body of the Presbyterians, and entirely so to the 
other party, which seems to be of some advantage to His Majesty's 
affairs in this juncture ; nor is there any connexion between this 
place and that of President to the Parliament. As for the Earl of 
Argyll, if he keep his word of giving his lady an honourable 
allowance and living inoffensively and without scandal, his sense, 
quality, and interest, make him fit for any place.* As for Earl 

* Argyll's character was not without reproach, and his domestic relations 
were unhappy. He was a constant correspondent of Carstares ; and in one 
of his letters, ahout this time, says, " As to what you say in relation to 
myself and my own particular behaviour, I take it very kindly of you. . . . 
I do assure you my carriage shall be such as I shall give no just cause of 
scandal or offence. . . . There is one thing I know will be clamoured 
against, that I have sent my two daughters home to Eosneath, designiug to 



XIV.] NEW APPOINTMENTS. 253 

Annandale, the opinion that many of both parties have of his 
unfixed temper, and his huffing and encroaching humour, makes me 
judge that His Majesty will not at all find it for his service to 
make him president of the Council.* If the King shall think fit to 
put Earl Melville in this place, then either Argyll or Annandale 
may be Privy Seal, and the other a lord of Treasury. 

" Eegister. 

" The King did seem to incline to Earl Selkirk as to this post, 
and I then told your Lordship that my Lord Tarbett had said that 
it required a man of sufficiency, but that I had heard from others 
that the clerks could supply any want of that nature that might be 
in the person that was Eegister ; and I am glad to hear that my 
Lord Stair said the same to the King ; though now he says that, 
upon information of the nature of the place, he is of another mind, — 
but I have nothing to say further upon this head.f 

" Secretary. 

" His Majesty made choice of Sir James Ogilvie for this post, 
and I have not much to object against it. I hope he may do well 
enough in it. J 

take the charge of them myself. .... I wish and endeavour that they be 
bred up in all duty and love to me, as their father, which I cannot expect 
in the circumstaDces they have been in hitherto, living with a mother in 
those terms with me, and who never in her life showed them either the 
example of goodnature or duty to their parents." McCormick, p. 285. 



* " Often out, and in, the Ministry, during the King's reign not 

much to be trusted." ' Characters of the Statesmen,' in the Hyndford MS. 
McCormick, p. 97. 

f Tarbat had been Lord Clerk Eegister, but had resigned. He writes to 
Carstares, in May 1695, " If the King judge it either fit or easy to please 
a party with allowing my address for a private life, I can as willingly quit 
a beneficial object to serve him, as they can trouble him until they get it. 
When their [i.e. the Presbyterians'] heat cannot bear with the Earl 
Melville's family, and with you, to whom they owe under the King all 
the power they have, I can little wonder of their fretting at me : but I 
hope their folly will not frighten the King from so faithful servants, nor 
you from giving him counsel for their sakes." McCormick, p. 229. 

X Younger son of Lord Findlater ; at the Eevolution opposed to declaring 
the throne vacant, but afterwards brought over to William's side, and 
made Solicitor-General, through Secretary Johnston's influence. "Upon 
Mr. Johnston's and Lord Stair's dismissal, he was made Secretary of 



254 WILLIAM OARSTARES. [Chap. 

" President of Session. 

" The King came to no determination in this matter, and it may 
admit of delay for some weeks.* 

" Lord of Session. 

" I presumed to name one Scuggell for this office, and by what I 
hear of him I do not find much reason to alter my opinion ; but 
my Lord Advocate may be consulted in this matter. I did also 
take the boldness to recommend Sir John Maxwell for the other 
vacancy in the Treasury, and I have still good reason to presume 
to do so. 

"I am, my Lord, still of the opinion that the sooner these 
changes be made, it will be the better, for delays have only em- 
barrassed his Majesty's affairs, and will, I am afraid, do still more so. 
His Majesty, if he shall so think fit, may allow the Duke of 
Queensberrie f and Earl Breadalban to speak to him to-morrow, 
before he declare his pleasure as to these things, for I suppose that 
Lord Tarbett hath already had the honour of waiting upon the 
King. There is one thing more that I would humbly suggest to 
your Lordship, which is that his Majesty would be pleased to call 
a Scots Council here, and honour them with his presence, as a 
Council .... I am confident, my Lord, that this method would 
be obliging, when there is a greater number of Scots councillors 
here than are at present in Scotland, and would shew that his 
Majesty doth both well know and take notice of the affairs of that 

kingdom Allow me only humbly to beg of your Lordship, 

that when Mr. Johnston is put out, your Lordship would be pleased 
to intercede with his Majesty to give him ground to suspect that 
he will employ him another way, for I should be sorry to see him 
reduced to straits," 



State, in which post he continued till King William's reign His 

implicitly executing what pleased King William, without ever reasoning 
about it, established him very much in his Majesty's favour, but his 
joining with an English secretary to destroy the colony of Darien lost him 
extremely with the people." Macky, p. 182. 



* Vacant, through the death of old Stair, on 25th November, 1695. 
t Drumlanrig had now succeeded to the title. He had taken the safe 
side at the Revolution. 



XIV.] SECRETARY JOHNSTON. 255 

This last sentence does not confirm the allegation of 
Macky, that Carstares had dealt treacherously with Johnston. 
Carstares, says the spy, is " the cunningest subtle dissembler 
in the world, with an air of sincerity, — a dangerous enemy, 
because always hid. An instance of which was Secretary 
Johnstown, to whom he pretended friendship till the very 
morning he gave him a blow, though he had been worming 
him out of the King's favour for many months before." * 
Now the ]ast sentence of this paper of Carstares' is dictated 
by a friendly feeling for Johnston ; although the writer was 
evidently convinced that the good of the State required his 
dismissal from office. Nor was Carstares' disapproval of 
Johnston's conduct a secret. In a letter to William Hamil- 
ton, of Killileagh, written in November, 1695, Walter 
Steuart refers to it as well known, and generally sympa- 
thised with. " The difference," he says, " between Mr. 
Johnstown and Mr. Carstares still remains, and the former 
hath a great deal of nobility against him." j- 

This unhappy Darien was from first to last a national 
madness. The design was splendid in conception and out- 
line ; but it was impracticable in execution and detail. 
William could have encouraged it, only at the cost of 
detaching Spain for ever from the Continental coalition ; of 
alienating the merchants of his own Amsterdam and Kotter- 
dam ; of provoking the bitterest resentments of the English. 
The advantages of the scheme, even if the Scots had gone 
about it more judiciously than they did, were too problem- 
atical to justify so great a risk. However much we may 
deplore a great national disaster, we cannot, at this day, 
blame him, or those of his advisers who concurred in the 
course he took. Darien is now chiefly memorable as one of 
the proximate causes of that union of the two kingdoms, 
which William had much at heart. 

* Macky, p. 210. The 'Characters' pass under Macky 's name, if not 
written by himself. 

f Caldwell Papers, part i., p. 193. William Hamilton was Under- 
Secretary of State for Scotland. Walter Steuart was of the Coltness 
family, and was settled as a merchant in London. 



256 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

The part which Carstares was understood to have taken, 
in the ministerial changes, was obnoxious to many of his 
countrymen in Scotland. As his moderate policy in Church 
affairs often exposed him to the reproach of being a luke- 
warm Presbyterian — too complaisant to English bishops and 
to a latitudinarian king — so the calm foresight, in this first 
stage of a fatal mania, which led him to anticipate the 
serious dangers lurking in the delusive future, and to see 
that the longer Paterson's specious project was encouraged 
by the government, the worse these would grow, incurred the 
charge of indifference to Scottish rights and interests, and 
tame acquiescence in the overbearing dictation of the 
English. Carstares bore the misunderstanding and ill-will 
with quietness — perhaps with a touch of contempt. "Be 
not troubled at stories," he writes to Dunlop, in March, 
1696. "I begin to undervalue them as to any public actings 
I have been concerned in ; for I have acted a more honest 
part in them than, it may be, some of the greatest mur- 
mur ers against me would have done, and I see no reason 
that honest men have any reason to complain of any changes 
that are made." 

I find only one short letter of his from the Continent, 
during 1696, dated "Breda, 18 May." "The King," he 
says_, " is expected here from Loo to-morrow. ... I shall 
peruse that book of Discipline you sent me, and give you 
my poor thoughts of it. Tell my sister I forget her not, 
though I have not answered her letter, which yet I shall do 
very shortly. Tell her that her nephew, Johnie Carstares, is 
a pleasant boy, and hath the nose of the family, which, it 
may be, you will think is none of the best, but I know it 
will please Sarah. My kind love to her and sister Jean. 
Adieu." 

A visit to the theatre of war was, in those days, one of the 
recreations of men of leisure and fashion ; and in June of this 
year Carstares' kinsman, William Mure, of Glanderston, 
made his way, among others, to the camp. He tells us he 
travelled from Brussels with " near 200 more in company," 



XIV.] ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM. 257 

and with a military convoy, and was lodged at the " quarter 
at Corbees, where my friend Mr. Carstares and Mr. Pringle, 
the then Scots subsecretary, stayed, in an old bones house. 
Within a day or two after I kissed the King's hand, being 
introduced by the Earl of Selkirk, one of the bed-chamber 
men, and once a day, while there, I rode alongst still with 
the King, in viewing the lines." * 

The Alexander Cunningham to whom the following letter 
refers was a Scotsman of distinguished ability. He was 
born at Ettrick, where his father was minister, in 1654, and 
died in 1737. He lived for many years in Holland, and 
part also of his long life was spent at Venice, where he was 
British envoy. He was well known in the literary society of 
England, Scotland, and Holland. He seems to have been a 
man not only of diplomatic capacity, but full of literary 
sympathies and activities.! Wodrow tells us of his proposed 
edition of the Justinian Code, edition of ' Horace,' ' Kemarks 
on Bentley,' ' Vindication of Christianity,' &c. Some of these 
projects were realized, some were not. The work by which 
he is remembered is his ' Latin History of Great Britain,' 
from 1688 to 1714, an English translation of which, by Dr. 
William Thomson, was published in 1787. He was, when 
Carstares became acquainted with him, tutor of John, Lord 
Lome, afterwards Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, that 

" Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield, 
And shake alike the senate and the field." 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" London, November 3, 1696. 
" Dear Brother, — I have had none from you for some time. I 
shall be glad to know how you and the family are, and Katherine's 

child I take this occasion of giving you an account of Mr. 

Alexander Cunningham, my Lord Lome's governor, whom I more 
of late esteem than ever, for in a late conversation I had with him 
he discoursed to me of a scheme for proving the divine original of 
the Christian religion, and that all the arguments ordinarily made 

* Caldwell Papers, i., p. 175. 
f ' Analecta,' vol. iv., p. 152. 



258 WILLIAM CARSTARES. Chap. 

use of against it are clear proof of it ; and, indeed, his way seems 
to be clear and convincing, and hath been so even to some great 
deists that he hath conversed with. He also designs to show how 
unreasonable it is for the Socinians to plead for Eeason being judge 
in matters divine, and that the divine original of the Christian 
doctrine being once proved, faith ought absolutely to take place as 
to its particular mysteries; and that the Scripture is to be the 
alone rule of judging of them. I must confess he did much 
please me by his discourses upon these heads, and the more because 
I was misinformed of him as to his principles. He is of extra- 
ordinary parts, deserves to be encouraged and justified against 
calumnies, and may be an honour to his country. You may, in a 
letter to him, take notice of your satisfaction with the account that 
I have given you of him, and desire he would favour you him- 
self with a short hint of his scheme as to this excellent subject, 
in a time when deism grows so much. I dearly remember sisters, 
your children, uncle, aunt, and other friends, and so doth my 
wife, who hugely blames your wife's silence in not letting her so 
much as know whether she had her hangings. Let her answer this 
charge. Godolphin is out of the Treasury. Our secretaries are 
not yet here. Adieu." 

There are no letters of interest during the rest of 1696, 
nor, indeed, for a considerable time afterwards. The King, 
after his next year's visit to Holland, returned to London 
in November 1697, on the conclusion of the Congress 
of Kyswick, which pledged France to recognise William 
as lawful sovereign of the British Isles, and ended the 
long and weary wars. Carstares was detained in Holland 
by sickness, and did not witness the rare cordiality with 
which his master was welcomed home by the Londoners. 
Several of his short notes to Dunlop about this time are 
partly written in cipher, to which we have not the key, 
and seem to refer chiefly to passing events in Scotland, 
in Church or State — the former of little permanent im- 
portance — the latter all more or less overshadowed with 
the impending lurid gloom of Darien. The correspondence 
in McCormick's collection is full of the " African Company," 
their shares, their addresses to the King, their wrath at 
Sir Paul Kycaut, at Hamburg, and general indignation at 



XIV.] APPLICANTS. 259 

the jealousies of England. Interspersed among the letters 
of this class are others, beseeching Carstares' influence and 
help in obtaining appointments, civil or military. This 
reply to one of these frequent appeals is a good specimen of 
polite evasion of the request. 

« To Lord ." 

" Loo, Aug. 30, 1698. 

" My Lord,— I have the honour of your Lordship's letter, and 
would have given a return sooner had I not been for some days at 
Eotterdam. As to what your Lordship does me the honour to 
write about, I assure your Lordship my capacity to serve you in it 
is not such as some may imagine ; and I do not doubt but your 
Lordship is sensible that others will have the management of that 
affair in their hands, with whom I have the honour to be in such 
friendship that, if it were fit for me to make proposals as to posts 
of that importance, yet it would be in subordination to their incli- 
nations and desires ; and if those your Lordship mentions in yours 
befriend you in your affair, I have too great an honour for them, 
and am too much a faithful well-wisher to your Lordship, as to offer 
to stand in the way of your Lordship's satisfaction. But really, 
my Lord, as I have said, I have not that weight in matters of such 
importance as some think I have ; but your Lordship may be 
assured that I am, sincerely, my Lord, 

" Your Lordship's most faithful and most humble servant, 

"W. Carstaees." 

The following letter is a sample of the applications for 
aid and counsel he was constantly receiving, and also serves 
to illustrate the embarrassed condition of many of the great 
families in those disordered times ; on which the fines and 
forfeitures of the persecution, and the divided policy of the 
Kevolution, had left their evil mark, and in which men still 
trod at every turn, "per ignes suppositos cineri cloloso." 

The Earl of Sutherland's son, Lord Strathnaver, had a 
command in the army, and was with the King in all his 
campaigns. 

" Edinburgh, April 24, 1697. 

"Eight Eeverend, — I came safely to this place on the 17th 
instant, I thank God, and request you to bless him on my behalf 
for so great a mercy. My son is not yet come here ; therefore I 

g 2 



260 WILLIAM CARSTARES. Chap. 

must request you to persuade him to haste home, since his absence 
from this is like to ruin his estate ; and I can command nothing of 
my own to live upon (for you know he is farmer of all that is 
mine), unless he return here speedily : so that if the king command 
him not home, where he can do his Majesty better service than in 
Flanders, his family will be ruined, and I will be redacted to great 
hardships, having nothing but my wife's jointure (which was 
farmed by Mr. Watson for six thousand merks by year) to live 
upon ; and, for that part of it, which Jarviswood should pay me for, 
I cannot command a farthing of it, though there be two years rent 
and a half due unto us. Wherefore, I must entreat you to make 
this known to both the secretaries, that they may deal with his 
Majesty to let my son home ; and to send an order to the receivers 
of his Majesty's rents to make what is due to my wife effectual ; 
and what he pleases to give myself also ; for without that, we have 
but the name of nothing. My wife is very valetudinary still, yet 
gives her most affectionate service to your dear consort and your- 
self. The confidence I have in your friendship, and the difficulties 
I now lie under, constrain me to give you this trouble, hoping you 
will forgive my freedom, and esteem me, as I am in all sincerity, 
sir, your affectionate friend and humble servant, 

" SOUTHEKLAND." * 

The Treaty of Kyswick was followed by a resumption of 
diplomatic intercourse between England and France. Port- 
land, who was angry with "William for the favours heaped on 
Albemarle, and unwilling to remain at Court, agreed to 
accept the embassy. His residence in Paris necessarily 
withdrew him, for the time, from his former charge of the 
affairs of Scotland, and left these even more than formerly 
to the guidance of Carstares. In the spring of 1698, 
Carstares was for a time in Scotland, on political business, 
the progress of which he reported to Portland. Lord 
Portland instructs his secretary, in thanking him for his 
letters, " positively to let you know the satisfaction he has of 
your safe return, and that you found things so well to your 
mind and the King's interest in Scotland — desiring you will 
continue the same information as you have given hitherto. 
.... His Excellency has no time to answer you himself, but 
* McCormick, p. 294. 



XIV.] SCOTCH CORRESPONDENCE. 261 

if anything occurs you want his opinion in, acquaint me with 
it, and I will endeavour to satisfy you as speedy as possible 
can be done." * An ambassador to the first Court in Europe 
could obviously give little time to the subjects of such a 
correspondence as a correspondence with Carstares must have 
been, — and as no one in London succeeded to the superin- 
tendence of Scottish business which Portland had exercised, 
the sagacious chaplain became during his absence, for all 
practical purposes, the viceroy. 

After the ambassador's return from France however, Car- 
stares writes to Dunlop : " Though Earl Portland hath, for 
reasons known to himself, laid down his key, yet he stands 
firm in the King's affection, and will concern himself still in 
our affairs, so that there will be no changes." 

During the years of 1698-99 and 1700, Carstares' Scotch 
correspondence is particularly active — much of it in cipher — 
most of it purely political, but always with a large admixture 
of intriguing, finessing, railing accusation, and begging for 
place — which, read in the cold light of after ages, looks 
sadly selfish and paltry. Sometimes there are lighter 
touches, and glimpses of the social life of Edinburgh ; as for 
example, when Cockburn, the Lord Justice Clerk, writes one 
September afternoon, " They daunced at our court, in the 
Abbey, till four o'clock this morning ;" or when Ogilvie (now 
Viscount Seafield and President of the Parliament) closes a 
letter with, " I have an untollerable fatigue ; I did proceed 
this day in the above for seven hours [Parliament], and did 
thereafter give a public dinner." One of the most exacting 
and impatient of the correspondents was Argyll. He was 
constantly demanding or complaining. His predominant 
grievance in 1699 was the appointment of Lord Teviot 
(formerly Sir Thomas Livingstone) to the command in 
Scotland. " The secretary," he writes, in high dudgeon, to 
Carstares, on 16th March 1699, "advises me to live well 
with Teviot, when he comes down. I had better not live at 
all, if the King redress me not, or allow me, with his favour, to 
* McCormick, p. 334. 



262 WILLIAM CARSTARES. Chap. 

redress myself." Again — " There is that rogue Forbes, fifteen 
shillings sterling a day net. There is Major Burnet has eight 
shillings a day ; there is one Dunbar, a cowardly rogue, has 
eight shillings a day ; there is the Laird of Glengary has 
200/ sterling a year of pension, a Papist, and in Lord James 
Murray's name ; and meantime my brothers must want, and 
I not gratified in a trifle since I came from London. All 
this I have over and over again represented to V. Seafield ; 
but to no purpose. I am at a deal of drudgery in writting 
long letters to him ; but all is lost : and, if you cannot cause 
him doe me right, I shall give over my correspondence ; and 
I must tell you, who I conceal nothing from, I cannot easily 
digest it. He fances me the easy fool — but it is not I. Sir, 
pray excuse this from one is your's. Adieu."* 

With all his diplomatic suaviter in modo, Oarstares could 
be perfectly firm, if he thought it necessary. We have, as I 
have said, hardly any of his replies to the manifold letters he 
received ; but one or two survive in stray collections, which 
give us an idea of his more formal official style. 

Sir John Maxwell, of Pollok, wished to be made Lord 
Treasurer Depute, and had been grumbling to Seafield about 
his being made, instead, Lord Justice Clerk and Lord of 
Session, in succession to Cockburn, who was promoted to the 
envied post (equivalent to that of the modern Chancellor of 
the Exchequer). Seafield sent the letters of remonstrance to 
Carstares, who, as usual, was the source of the appointment. 
Carstares then writes to Sir John. " I have made bold to 
give my humble advice to my Lord Secretary, that the 
commissions designed for you should be expeded, notwith- 
standing of what you are pleased to write to my Lord about 
them. And though it may be this is too great presumption 
in me, yet I am sure it is intended in all sincerity for the 
good of my country, the satisfaction of friends, and the 
contenting of honest men in general. 

« London, February 4, 1699." t 

* McCormick, p. 466. 

f ' Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok,' vol. ii. p. 115, 



XIV.] DAR1EN DISASTER. 263 

The deference of tone, tenacity of purpose, and declaration 
of unimpeachable motive, seem all very characteristic. 

Carstares to Dunlop. 

" London, May 9, 1699. 

" . . . . When I am able to give you a farther account of your 
African Company I shall do it. I am desired by more than one to 
let you know that you are like to lose the right of Mr. Snell's gifts 
in favour of your University, by delaying to do what is your part in 
proposing some young men to have the benefit of that settlement.* 
I hear that the Master of Balliol College hath wrote twice to you 
upon this subject, and hath no return. Pray mind this affair 
without delay. There is one Hay, whose father was minister of 
Kinneuchar, that I am desired to recommend to you, which I do, 
knowing that you will do for him what you shall find con- 
venient." 

In July, 1698, the long-projected expedition to Darien 
sailed from Leith, " amid bright sunshine and the plaudits 
of a vast assemblage." In the darkening days of October, 
1699, it became known in Edinburgh that the settlement 
had been deserted by the first settlers.t In the midst of the 
tumult of rage and disappointment which agitated the 
whole nation, Carstares was sent down to Edinburgh to give 
the weight of his presence and advice to the Government. 
He remained in Scotland till March 1700, and writes to 
Dunlop, on his return, — " I do meet with all the kindness I 
can desire," from which we may conclude his conduct had 
been satisfactory to the King — though what special com- 
missions he had borne we do not discover. 

Nothing said or done in Scotland could induce William to 
sanction or protect the ill-fated colonists ; and the grand 
scheme and expedition came to their tragic end in the 
spring of 1700, leaving to Scotland a legacy of financial 
ruin and political distraction and to William a legacy of 

* The Snell Exhibition to Balliol. 

t Burton from 1688, vol. i. p. 308. Dalrymple, vol. iii. vi. p. 96. 



264 WILLIAM CARSTARES. Chap. 

national hate, as much more bitter than that engendered by 
Glencoe, as hard-won Lowland money was more precious to 
the Scot than lawless Celtic lives. 

Amidst the crash of the universal disaster a special blow 
smote Carstares. 

His dear friend Dunlop had been much interested in 
Darien. His experience of Carolina marked him as one 
of the few men in the country who knew anything of 
colonial life. He was made a director of the company, and 
led the professors of the "University, of which he was principal, 
to invest 50QZ. of their slender funds in the company's 
stock. Although harassed by the excitements and anxieties 
of the enterprise, he was not thought to be in dangerously 
ill-health. On one Sunday evening in March he was 
supping in Edinburgh, with his friends Sir John and Lady 
Maxwell ; before the next, he was no more. Carstares felt 
keenly the sudden loss of one so much in his confidence, and 
bound to him by so many close and familiar ties. 

He could not return to Scotland to see his sister, but he 
wrote to her the following letter from London, on March 
16:— 

" My dearest Sister, — Could my sincere sympathy with you, 
or my concerned tender affection for you, signify anything to you 
under your heavy affliction, you have them both in a high degree ; 
but I must confess your loss is so great, and I share so deeply in 
it, that I am at a stand what to say. But He that spoke as never 
man did, can speak to your soul with such power, as to calm all the 
stirs that are there, because of the great breach that in infinite 
wisdom is made upon you. He can say to the swelliugs of your 
grief, for what is by His hand taken from you, ' Peace, be still ! ' 
Then there will be a holy acquiescing in His disposal of your 
dearest earthly comfort. O that He himself would speak a word in 
season to you in your present heaviness 1 

" Dear sister, endeavour to have it for your language what you 
have in Psalm xxxix. 7, — ' And now, Lord, now, when the affec- 
tionate, the useful ,the edifying, and comfortable companion of my 
pilgrimage is taken from me, what wait I for! my hope is in 
Thee." O lift up your soul to this all-sufficient God, who can 



XIV.] DEATH OF DUNLOP. 265 

rejoice it. Sorrow not as those that have no hope ; you are 
far from having reason to do so. E'ix not your thoughts alto- 
gether upon the dark side of what the infinitely holy and sovereign 
God hath measured out to you, but consider what reason you have 
for thanksgiving, even in your present circumstances. Bless God 
that ever you had such a relation ; that you enjoyed him so long ; 
that he was not taken from you when he was in the remote parts of 
the world ; that he hath had access to be remarkably and singu- 
larly useful in his generation beyond many; and that he hath 
died lamented and desired by the lovers of Sion. All I shall add 
at present is, that the God of Consolation can comfort, stablish, 
strengthen you, and that it is my earnest prayer He would be 
pleased to do so. You have the affectionate sympathy of my dear 
wife ; we give our love to the children and poor sister Mackie. 
Allow me, dear sister, to assure you that you shall always find me 
to be with tender concern, 

" Dear sister, your most affectionate, sympathising brother, 

" W. Carstaees." 

" You had a father," he writes, on 9th April, to Dunlop's 
eldest son, " whose memory will be savoury to posterity. He 
did cast you a pattern of a well-managed zeal for the 
interest of Christ and the public good, and of faithfulness 
and affection to his friends. I hope it will be your en- 
deavour to imitate it. I doubt not but it will be your 
endeavour, too, to be a comfort to your destitute and afflicted 
mother, and that you will be exemplary to your brethren in 
your deportment. You and they may be assured of all 
affection and assistance from me that I am capable of. 
Your father's memory will always be dear to me. I have 
wrote to Hugh Cunningham to take out the gift of pension 
which the King hath given to your mother. It is 601. 
only a year. Pray give her my dear love, and tell her she 
is, and shall always be, much upon my heart. I kindly 
remember your aunts, and your brother John, with little 
Will. Let me hear fully from you. I know you will have a 
care of any papers of your father's, that related to the public. 
I do not think it fit that you should let any of them go out 
of your hands. I heartily commit you all to the gracious 



266 WILLIAM CARSTARES. Chap. 

care of an all-sufficient God, who can richly bless you and 
supply all your wants, and make up your great loss. My 
wife gives her dear love to your mother, and is as affection- 
ately concerned for you all as I am. 

* " My brother Alexander is desirous to have John with him 
in Holland, if he have not an inclination to follow his 
book." * 

Carstares had to take a second journey to Scotland, with 
the King's commands, in May. He writes to his sister from 
Carlisle, on the 11th of that month. " I came this western 
road of purpose to have been a day or two with you, before I 
went to Edinburgh ; but I am forced to stay here for want of 
horses, and cannot get away till Monday, though I came 
hither yesternight ; and I have been longer on the road than 
I expected, both through the badness of the way and weather, 
and by a severe fall I had, by which my left shoulder was 
so much bruised that I was feverish for a day or two, and 

did ride with uneasiness My desire was to make my 

first visit to you, but the providence of God hath ordered 
it so that I now judge it will be fit to go first to Edin- 
burgh, and I will endeavour to see you afterwards. I have 
a very sincere sympathy with you, dearly remembering 
you before Him who can supply all your wants. Your 
concerns shall be more minded by me than my own. Pray, 
dear sister, encourage yourself in the Lord, and firmly 
believe that He is infinitely wise and all-sufficient." 

Mrs. Carstares, a few of whose letters remain, says, in writing 
to Mrs. Dun lop, on July 20th : — " I was extremely concerned 
that my dearest did not see you when he was last in Scotland ; 
and it was no small disappointment to him that he could not 
go first to Glasgow. He landed in Holland yesterday was a 
se'nnight — had a good passage from Gravesend to Eotterdam. 
He sailed in two nights and one day. At his coming to his 

* John went to Holland, but did not turn out a creditable member ot 
society. 



XIV.] ILL FEELING IN SCOTLAND. 267 

brother's, he found my sister Carstares' mother dead in the 
house." 

Carstares had carried his report of affairs in Scotland to 
the King, at Hampton Court, and had reluctantly attended 
him abroad. The earnest desire of his Scottish Ministers 
was that the King should visit his northern kingdom ; and 
the policy of such a step was urged on him by Carstares. 
But William would not take his advice on this head, any 
more than on that of his marrying again ; * and went back to 
his beloved Holland, to the grievous disappointment and 
embarrassment of his servants in Scotland — who found them- 
selves obliged to carry on the government in an impeded 
and ineffective fashion, in the face of a general disloyalty 
and a large Parliamentary opposition. Queensberry, who 
was now Commissioner, Marchmont the Chancellor, f wily 
James Steuart the Lord Advocate, all alike complained of the 
impossibility of conducting the government with proper 
firmness and authority. " You do well," writes Steuart to 
Carstares, " to recommend vigour ; but I wish also you would 
send us a good dose of it, for I protest it is not here to be 
found." % William, however, was habitually indifferent to 
Scotch politics ; and affairs in that kingdom had to right 
themselves after the shock of Darien as best they could, 
without his personal interposition. Yet he entertained his 
Scotch subjects with the prospect of his coming during the 
autumn. " You tell me," writes Queensberry § on 26th 
September, "His Majesty desires to know what is the 

* McCormick, p. 582. 

t Formerly Sir Patrick Hume. 

% McCormick, p. 547. 

§ The domestic and personal references in Queensberry 's correspondence 
are sometimes rather amusing. After the death of the young Duke of 
Gloucester he writes to Carstares expressing his regret, and then proceeds : 
"I shall say no more on this melancholy subject at present, nor trouble 
you with any other business, but to beg that you would receive the King's 
orders for me in relation to the manner of my mourning. If I shall only 
put myself and my wife in black, it is a matter of no expense ; but, if it 
be thought fit that I put my servants and equipage in mourning, the 
charge will be considerable to the King; for I have at least fifty servants 



268 WILLIAM CARS TABES. Chap. 

shortest time in which things absolutely necessary may be 
provided for his coming. I know not truly what may be 
reckoned absolutely necessary. You know the condition of 
the house and the apartments of it." * The royal visit 
never was paid, and William died without having crossed 
the Tweed. 

We have but one more letter, dated "Hampton Court, 
21st December 1700," written by Carstares during his 
master's lifetime. It is to Mrs. Dunlop, and refers to the 
appointment of her husband's successor. 

"The College of Glasgow," he says, "was under extra- 
ordinary obligations " to Dunlop. " You may be assured 
that it is my particular concern that there be such a princi- 
pal as may be both fit for the place and friendly to you. 
There are three spoken of at present — Mr. Flemming, who is 
here, and upon whom I can entirely rely; Mr. Cumming, 
whom you and I both have a confidence in ; and Mr. John 
Stirling, of Greenock, of whom I heard not till yesternight, 
by a letter from Sir John Maxwell, and whom you need take 
no notice of ; but if he should be the man, I cannot think 
but he will be according to your mind.f But, dear sister, 
be at ease. I hope that business will be adjusted with my 

advice Let me know upon all occasions wherein I can 

serve you My love to my nephew, with brother, and 

sister Drew." % 

He spent the summer of 1701 again in Holland, chiefly at 



that I must clothe, besides my coaches, which I must have from London, 
it being impossible to get them here. I have privately made an estimate 
of the prices of things, and do find, that, to have all these things as they 
ought to be, fifteen hundred pounds will be the lowest it can be brought 
to ; wherefore, as soon as possible, let me have his Majesty's pleasure in 
this matter." — McCormick, p. 594. 



* McCormick, p. 662. 
f He was the man. 

% His sister Jean had recently married the Rev. Joseph Drew, after- 
wards Principal of St. Andrews. 



XIV.] DEATH OF THE KING. 269 

Loo — whither William had resorted for the last time. The 
King did not return thence till November. Prospects looked 
brighter, both politically and personally, for William, in 
England and Scotland, than they had looked for some 
time. The recognition by Louis of James's eldest son as 
the rightful King of England after his father's death, in the 
spring of the year, had at once quickened the sluggish 
English loyalty to William's throne, and had evoked a spirit 
in cordial sympathy with his hereditary hatred and distrust 
of France. 

Although Scotland, as yet half paralysed by the shock of 
the Darien calamity, was still brooding in bitter and me- 
nacing wrath over her ruined hopes, out of the very depth 
of her misfortunes was rising the dawn of a better day of more 
assured prosperity. The King's clear eye discerned, amidst 
the gloom and distraction of all parties in that country, the 
possibility of giving effect to his long-cherished project of a 
legislative union between it and England. But he was not to 
live to wage any more wars with his old enemy, or to ratify 
the Scottish union. All summer, at Loo, his health had 
been bad, and the harsh winter had not improved it. On 
the 28th February 1702 he sent a fresh message to his 
English Commons, calling their attention to the ques- 
tion of union with Scotland. He despatched Albemarle 
to Holland to make ready for an early campaign against 
Louis. But before the House could act upon his message, — 
when Albemarle came back, on the 7th March, with a 
favourable report, — the King turning coldly from thoughts 
of politics and from news of camps and armaments, could 
only murmur "je tire vers ma fin."* The end was at hand. 
On the morning of Saturday, the 8th of March he died, at 
Kensington, in the fifty-second year of his age, and the four- 
teenth of his reign. 

We have no record of any intercourse that may have 
passed between him and his chaplain in those closing days. 

* Amplified by Lord Macaulay into "I am fast drawing to my end." 



270 WILLIAM CABSTARES. Chap. 

But it was remembered afterwards that not long before 
his death he expressed his unabated regard for his faithful 
friend and servant. " As for Mr. Carstares," he said, " I 
have known him long, and I know him thoroughly, and 
I know him to be a truly honest man." * 

* Burnet, vol. iv. p. 559. Dalrymple, iii. x. p. 169. 
1 Fame's Mausoleum : a Pindarick Poem,' by Robert Fleming. 1702. 
Mr. Graham Dunlop possesses a gold ring containing a lock of William's 
hair, which, when on his death-bed, he gave to Carstares, 



XV.] 271 



CHAPTEE XV. 

Queen Anne — Carstares goes to Edinburgh as Principal of the University 
— One of the Ministers of the Town. 

Caestakes could never speak of the death of King William 
without tender emotion * Cold and gruff as he appeared, 
there was in William's Dutch heart a deep and faithful 
centre, which attracted and reciprocated the affection of 
strong natures like his own. Heinsius, Bentinck, Carstares, 
were not only loyal subjects and trusty servants, but devoted 
friends. Their political fidelity was confirmed by their per- 
sonal devotion. It is easy to understand William's claim 
to such attachment on the part of such men. His faults of 
manner any lackey of the Court could observe; but men, 
who, like himself, had been trained in the stern school of 
danger and adversity, held the ungracious manners excused 
by the noble principles. Carstares had been nearly tortured 
to death under the regime of the urbane and fascinating- 
reprobate Charles. In the unpolished William he had found 
a master whose mind was filled with great ideas, whose 
intelligence was luminous, whose aims were high, whose spirit 
was noble and serene, whose instincts were just, whose sym- 
pathies were all on the side of liberty and righteousness. 
His character was cast in a large and heroic mould, as one 
predestined for other than the " common chances common 
men could bear ; " and those within the circle of his influence 
who were lovers of liberty, of truth, of the rights of man, 
and who were haters of immoral prerogative and authority 
and superstition, not only recognised in him their proper 
leader, but clung to him with an affinity of the heart, no 

* McCormick, p. 67. 



272 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

less than of the understanding. William valued their attach- 
ment, and was invariably faithful to his friends. 

The friendship of William was no passport to the favour of 
Anne. His heavy sister-in-law had never been on cordial 
terms with him, and her dull sympathies were with the Tories 
and not with the Liberals. She, however, knew and esteemed 
Carstares, and, without solicitation, continued to him the 
appointment and emoluments of Eoyal Chaplain, which he 
had enjoyed during the late reign.* The Queen was a staunch 
Episcopalian, and his personal attendance was never required 
by her, as it had been by William ; nor were apartments pro- 
vided for him at Kensington or any of the palaces. While 
William lived he had received frequent allowances for special 
services, but this source of income was now cut off, and 
except the slender revenues of the Chapel Eoyal he had no 
official salary ."f 

Carstares' direct influence in the management of Scotch 
affairs, of course ceased with William's death. He could 

* McCormick, p. 69. Graham Dunlop MSS. 

f These allowances had not been large enough to admit of his " laying 
by." The following is a list of them, from the Graham Dnnlop MSS. : — 

1. Grant of rents of chapel royal. 26 Feb. 1690. 

2. New gift of ditto, with deanery and sub-deanery thereof. 28 Feb. 
1694. 

3. Letter to Treasury determining the rents of the Abbey of Crossraguel, 
and Priory of Monimusk and Auchlossan, to belong to Carstares by his 
former gift, and ordering payment of them, with arrears. 28 Feb. 1695. 

4. Treasury warrant for £300 for " acceptable services performed." 30 
March 1697. 

5. Letter to Treasury, ordering payment to Carstares of £1000 of 
grassum, due by University of Glasgow, for their tack of the Arch- 
bishopric. 22 July 1697. 

6. Letter for payment of £200 for services and charges in Flanders. 
6 Feb. 1699. 

7. Ditto, ditto, £400. 11 Jan. 1700. 

8. Warrant for £200 (" no consideration ") on 3 July 1700. 

9. Letter for payment of £300 for services with tie King in Holland. 
8 May 1701. 

10. Ditto, ditto. 3 Feb. 1702. 

11. A new warrant, by the Queen, of the office of one of her Majesty's 
chaplains, with the rents of the Chapel Eoyal, Deanery, and sub-Deanery. 
Dated at St. James's, 12 May 1702. 



XV.] BECOMES PRINCIPAL. 273 

never again expect to stand so near the throne as he had 
stood and to wield his former power. It appears that his 
first inclination was to withdraw wholly from active life. 
To renounce public and political functions entirely seems to 
be easier to some men than to accept a diminished share of 
them. Diocletian retreated to his garden at Spolatum, and 
Charles V. to his convent at Yuste, when wearied of the 
sceptre, to forget, in a thorough change of life, their former 
toils and cares. But the retirement which Emperors can 
command, commoners with straitened incomes cannot pur- 
chase. Carstares could not afford, at the age of fifty-three, 
to forego the active occupation which might supplement his 
private resources ; nor could he keep himself, even if he 
wished it, completely out of the stream of politics. He was 
too well known, and his experience and counsel were too 
highly valued by the statesmen of the day, to allow of his 
burying himself in an idle privacy. After remaining for 
some time in uncertainty as to his future plans, he resolved 
to settle in Edinburgh, and to accept the office of Principal 
of the University. 

Dr. Kule died early in 1703, and in May of that year 
Carstares was elected his successor by the Town Council, in 
which the patronage of the University was vested.* 

The period between his quitting the Court and his coming 
to Edinburgh was spent in London. It was a time of anxiety 
to the Liberal and Presbyterian party in Scotland. 

The Queen's leanings were known to be towards the 
reactionary party, to which Episcopacy was dear, and in 
whose eyes the Revolution was a vile thing. The Tories and 
Jacobites began to swagger with the air and tone of confidence 
and success. The hotter Presbyterians were ready to assume, 
on their part, an attitude of jealous and menacing self- 
assertion and to make the Parliament-house and the Church 
Courts ring with their technical war-cries. In the Parlia- 
ment of 1702, when the party headed by the Duke of 

* Bower's 'History of the University of Edinburgh,' vol. ii. p. 27. 
McCorrnick gives a wrong date, 1704. 

T 



274 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Hamilton had withdrawn, the Presbyterians were overpower- 
ingly strong, and they did not hesitate to use their strength. 
When Bruce of Bromhall ventured to hint, in debate, that 
" some of the laws establishing Presbytery contained things 
inconsistent with the essence of monarchy," he was unani- 
mously expelled from the House* (But days were coming 
when the Presbyterians were to go more softly.) 

The dread of the party's rashness is reflected in Carstares' 
correspondence, 

In some of the provincial synods, the clergy's apprehension 
of a renewal of oppressive and prelatic policy in the Govern- 
ment acting under a malign Court influence, had prompted 
indiscreet harangues upon the Church's " intrinsic power." 
The more the Church suspected and dreaded " Caesar," the 
more w r as she prone to vaunt her independence of him ; and 
she tried to escape from the unpleasant consciousness of her 
inability to match him if he took to his own weapons, by a 
louder assertion of her peculiar spiritual power. Carstares, 
who had a statesman's dislike of extreme formulas and parade 
of abstract resolutions, writes to Principal Stirling, the suc- 
cessor of Dunlop,f at Glasgow : — 

" London, April 21, 1702. 
" Eev. and dear Brother, — Your kind letter was not a little 
acceptable, not only upon the account of the sensible and plain 
narrative it gave of what passed at your synod, but because it was 
so expressed as I was in a capacity to improve it to some advantage. 
The proposals as to the intrinsic power, which some few urge with 
so much warmth, are at this juncture so visibly inexpedient, and, I 
had almost said, destructive, to the solid security of our church, 
that I am amazed any should have the countenance to urge them, 
and particularly such whose zeal for such heights was little, 
known till there were factions in our state. I cannot forget the 
noise that was made about this affair in the last session of 
Parliament, and chiefly by some who would laugh at our folly if 

* ' Marchmont Papers,' vol. iii. p. 241. ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 47. 

f Thirty-six letters of Carstares are preserved among the MSS. of the 
library of the University of Glasgow. They are to be found in three 8vo 
volumes, lettered on the back respectively, ' Letters, Scots, 1701-1714 ;' 
'Letters, England, 1702-1713;' 'England, 1714-1717/ 



XV.] REMOVES TO EDINBURGH. 275 

we should believe that they had the least tincture of Presbyterian 
principles. I bless God that the Church of Scotland hath such a 
settlement, and such quiet as at present it doth enjoy ; and long 
may it do so — and such will have little peace, upon serious re- 
flection, that would disturb its peace and expose it to danger by rash 
and imprudent practices, however disguised and varnished. I am 
persuaded that our strength at present is to be quiet and sit still. 
Her Majesty hath solemnly declared that she will maintain the 
Church as by law established ; and those of ^our country that have 
the chief management of affairs under Her Majesty have been, and 
continue to be, friendly to our Church, and solemnly declare their 
firm resolution to be so. 

" What shadow of a reason, then, can there be for our taking 
new measures to gain new and uncertain friends? Is it not 
rational to think that we secure better what we have, by a discreet 
management of it than by grasping at more ? . . . . 

" . . . . The Church may sometimes sustain prejudice from the 
overacting of its friends as well as from the designs of its enemies. 
The good Lord Himself direct those concerned "*.... 

Carstares to Principal Stirling. 

" London, June 22, 1702. 
" .... I hope there shall be no ground to fear that the late 
King's gift to the University shall be infringed, and you may be 
assured, dear brother, that I shall not be wanting in my care and 
endeavour to prevent any prejudice to the University ; though I am 
apt to think that some of your regents have not carried so kindly to 
my sister as might have been expected ; but this is only betwixt 
you and me " f • • • • 

Clouds were darkening the northern sky when Carstares 
transferred his residence from London to Edinburgh. The 
political atmosphere was charged with the elements of storm ; 
and in returning to his own country, though he quitted the 
greater and busier arena of public affairs, he stepped into 
one far more excited and contentious. That passionate and 
tortuous strife was beginning which was to end in the Union ; 
and Jacobite stratagems, Episcopal pretensions, Presbyterian 
jealousies, national prejudices, personal dishonesties, and 
political corruptions weltered together in illimitable babble 

* Glasgow University MSS. t Ibid. 

T 2 



276 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

and confusion. The presence of the calm and judicious 
Churchman, bringing his wide experience of courts, councils, 
and camps, to this narrow and fiery centre of Scotch life and 
action at Edinburgh, must have been a blessing to the few 
wise and honest patriots who, in taking their share of the 
conflict, were trying to direct it to a safe issue of public 
welfare ; while to his fellow-Churchmen, in particular, his 
name was a tower of strength. He found at Edinburgh 
many of his old friends, as well as others with whom he had 
long been on terms of more or less confidential correspond- 
ence. Sir James Steuart was still Lord Advocate; Cockburn 
of Ormistoun had been turned out of the Treasury by Queen 
Anne, and Marchmont had been deprived of the Chancellor- 
ship, but they both continued to take a keen part in politics. 
Seafield, who, as Secretary of State, had been a constant 
correspondent of Carstares', was now Chancellor, and his firm 
friend Queensberry was Commissioner. That Earl of Arran, 
whom he had tried so hard to win over to William's side 
was now, as Duke of Hamilton, rising to a position of strong 
influence, though of very questionable integrity. It was not 
at a time of much political excitement, and in the midst of 
the society of such men as these, that Carstares could hope to 
enjoy the felicities of the " beatus ille, qui procul negociis." 

He did not, however, allow his interest in public affairs, 
and his relations to these leading statesmen, to intrude upon 
his discharge of the proper duties of his office in the Uni- 
versity. In that he was as sedulous as if it had been his 
sole concern. 

The local habitation of the University of Edinburgh was 
then, as now, at that Kirk of Eield which had gained an evil 
name at the murder of Darnley. Where the spacious edifice 
of the College now admits its 1500 students, the "Manse 
and house of the Provostry of the Kirk of Field," along with 
a " great lodging," * built by the Town Council, gave humbler 
accommodation to a much smaller concourse of students, and 
to the Principal and regents. The houses of the Principal 
* Bower's History, vol. i., appendix. 



XV.] INSTALLATION. 211 

and regents were handsome dwellings, with good gardens 
attached to them. The college itself was built around three 
courts, and had a high tower over the great gate which 
opened towards the city.* 

The salary of the Principal had been fixed, in 1609, at 
500/. Scots, or about 41?. 13s. sterling ; but a short time before 
Carstares' election (and presumably in view of it), the Town 
Council agreed to increase this wretched pittance to the 
still inadequate sum of 1600 marks, or about 92Z. sterling.! 
The patrons elected Carstares on the 12th of May : two days 
later he appeared before them to take the oaths of office ; 
and on the 3rd of June the Lord Provost, Sir Hugh Cunning- 
ham, duly installed him at the College.! 

Among the Graham Dunlop MSS. is the paper that follows, 
-endorsed, '' What I said when Sir Hugh Cunningham did 
present me to the Masters as Principal : " — 

" You may be sure, my Lord, that I would have called for any 
rules that concern my post from the keeper of the library, but I 
shall read this paper which your Lordship hath given me; yet, 
my Lord, I cannot but tell your Lordship and the other worthy 
magistrates of this city that are here present with you, that I look 
upon myself as coming into this post upon no other terms than 
what my predecessor did ; and that, as to my part, all affairs re- 
lating to this college remain entire. 

W. Carstaees." 

The particularity of this statement records the existence, 
at the date of Carstares' installation, of embarrassments 
created by the incongruous relation between the University 
and the civic Corporation, which only ceased when that 
relation was, in our own days, abolished by Act of Par- 
liament. The functions of University government and 
patronage, which, in Padua and Pisa, had been entrusted 
by Venetian and Florentine Senates to small and carefully 
selected courts of the most eminent of the citizens, — of 

* Calamy's 'Life and Times,' vol. ii. p. 175. 
f Town Council Eecords, vol. xxxvii. p. 325. 
X Ibid. p. 482, et seq. 



278 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

which, in Leyden, the enlightened civic aristocracy of one 
of the most intellectual of European communities had 
declined to assume the responsibility, were confidently dis- 
charged by the municipality of Edinburgh. The natural 
result was encroachment — now on the rights of the Town 
Council, now on those of the University — jealousy and alter- 
cation. One of the frequent disputes had reached its height 
just before Carst ares' installation. The right of the Crown 
to present to a chair of its own creation had been contested 
by the Council ; in reprisal for an assertion of the inde- 
pendence of the Senatus, the salaries of the professors had 
been stopped ; the academic discipline was alleged to have 
fallen into discredit and abeyance ; and the patrons had de- 
clared their resolution to revise the whole laws of the Uni- 
versity. As a preliminary to this revisal. the laws were 
publicly read at Carstares' installation, and to this his initial 
statement referred.* His firmness and tact were successful 
in guiding the action of the University and in conciliating 
the irritated and jealous Town Council. A remodelled code, 
framed by the Principal, was adopted by the patrons, who ex- 
pressed their favour for him by appointing him to the charge 
of the Church of the Grey Friars, and raising his salary to 
2200 marks, — which, however, appears to have included his 
stipend as a minister of the " good town."t 

The laws, as remodelled by Carstares, contain some quaint 
regulations, illustrative of the state of society at that time, as 
well as several of permanent value. " The college meetings 
begin with October. In the winter season the students are to 

meet in their classes before seven in the morning On 

the Lord's Day the students are to convene in their classes 
presently after sermon, to be exercised in their sacred 

* Bower, vol. ii. 24 et seq. 

f Bower, vol. ii. p. 40. Town Council Records, vol. xxxviii. p. 142, of 
date 11 Sept. 1704. " The Council, with the Kirk Sessions of the City, 
being convened together, did subscribe two calls, one to Mr. William 
Carstares, Principal of the College of Edinburgh, and one to Mr. William 
Mitchell, one of the ministers of the Canongate, to be two of the ministers 
of the good town of Edinburgh." 



XV.] DUTIES AT EDINBURGH. 279 

lessons The students are obliged to discourse always 

in Latin ; as also to speak modestly, chastely, courteously. 
.... Those who transgress — especially such as speak English 
within the college — are liable, the first time in a penny, the 

next in twopence None may absent from the college 

or go out of it without his regent's licence Every one 

is to show good examples to others by his piety, goodness, 
modesty, and diligence in learning, as becomes the disciple 

of Christ Let all shun bad company, as a corrupting 

plague. None may carry sword, dagger, gun, and such 
arms, or forfeit threepence. None in the evening may walk 

the streets The principal and masters being informed 

that the custom of playing at dice (owing its rise to infamous 
bankrupts) has lately crept into the college, and knowing 
what hazard and mischief those portend to studies, piety, and 
good manners, therefore they strictly discharge students to 

use cards, dice, raffling, or any such games of lottery 

Those who neglect to go to church shall forfeit sixpence 
each time." .... 

Along with the duties of principal, Carstares discharged 
those of primarius professor of Divinity, and of a parish 
minister. His habits of method, his equable temper, and 
his great capacity for work, enabled him to overtake the 
calls of each office with regularity and perfect success. Of 
his prelections as a lecturer on Divinity none remain, 
unless a long paper on the comparative merits and authority 
of Episcopacy and Presbytery may be regarded as written 
for his students. The teaching of systematic theology, how- 
ever, appears to have been the duty in those days of a 
second professor ; and the Principal's lectures (probably on 
special questions in theology) were delivered not oftener 
than once a- week, in the common-hall, and were attended 
both by students and professors.* He observed the custom 

* 'Account of the Government of the Church of Scotland.' London, 
1708, p. 20. 

This pamphlet gives a minute account of the system of government and. 
teaching in the University of Edinburgh, which evidently devolved much 



280 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

of opening each session with an oration delivered in the 
presence of the Senatus and the students : — 

" In his first oration," says M'Cormick, " which he pronounced 
in the common hall of the University, before a very numerous and 
respectable audience, he displayed such a fund of erudition, such a 
thorough acquaintance with classical learning, such a masterly 
talent in composition, and, at the same time, such ease and fluency 
of expression in the purest Latin, as delighted all his auditors. 
Even his enemies were obliged to confess, that in him were united 
the manners of a gentleman with the science of a scholar. The 
famous Dr. Pitcairn, who was always one of his hearers upon these 
occasions, used to observe that, when Mr. Carstares began to 
address his audience, he could not help fancying himself trans- 
ported to the forum in the days of ancient Kome."* 

Carstares, like the other great divines of the Scottish 
Church in her best days, took no narrow and provincial view 
of the position and character of the National Establishment. 
To him the Church of Scotland, while the rightful repre- 
sentative of the religious life and belief of the Scottish 
people, was but one branch of the great Keformed Com- 
munion, and was bound to live in brotherly alliance with all 
the other ecclesiastical bodies, which maintained reformed 
doctrine and Presbyterian government. He desired to 
strengthen the ties which bound the Church of Scotland to 
the Presbyterians of the Continent, of England, and of 
Ireland. With a view to this, he had already done what he 
could to procure the appointment, in the Scotch Uni- 
versities, of some professors from those of Holland. He was 
in favour of sending young Scotsmen to finish their educa- 



more personal superintendence and examination of the students on the 
Principal than is attempted now. The curriculum then began with Greek, 
a knowledge of Latin being indispensable before entrance. There were 
public disputations before the heads of the University ; the candidates for 
degrees had to defend their themes against the Principal and professors and 
all comers, and to deliver "harangues" in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. Is 
the modern M.A. or B.D. of Edinburgh sufficient for these things? 
* McCormick, p. 70. 



XV.] MINISTER OF THE TOWN. 281 

cation abroad, and of thus keeping up the old connexion, 
which associated the names of Crichton, of Buchanan, of 
Mair, of Melville, and of many Scottish scholars and divines, 
with the honourable traditions of the Continental Univer- 
sities. And now, as head of the University of Edinburgh, 
he wished to render the seminary, over which he presided, 
attractive to those Presbyterian and Nonconformist students 
whom exclusive tests debarred from an academic career in 
England, and Ireland. His plan was the establishment of 
what is now called a " college hall," under the wing of the 
University, in which these students should be accommodated. 
They were to have a common table, and their studies and 
conduct were to be under the charge of an English warden. 
Thus, while enjoying the advantages of the public instruc- 
tions of the Scotch professors, they would still be, to a 
certain extent, amenable to English influence, and under 
familiar control. 

The English Nonconformists went into the project with 
some heartiness, and money was subscribed to carry it out ; 
but its execution was delayed too long, and at last the death 
of Carstares extinguished it.* 

The proposal to appoint the Principal of the University 
one of the ministers of the town was started at a time when 
there was no vacant charge, and the Lord Provost, though 
anxious to co-operate with Carstares' friends in securing his 
services for a city pulpit, appears to have shrunk from the 
responsibility of creating a new charge. There was some 
talk and negotiation about it, which coming to Carstares' 
ear, he wrote to Sir Hugh Cunningham : — 

" My Lord, — Two of my friends, to whom your Lordship spoke 
about an affair in which it seems I am concerned — I mean a call to 
be one of the ministers of your good town — have informed me that 
your Lordship is straitened between the kindness you are pleased to 
have for me and the concern you are obliged to have for the 
interest of the town. 

* McCormick, p. 71. Bower, vol. ii. p. 48 et scq. Graham Dunlop 
and Murray Dunlop MSS. 



282 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

" I have thought it my duty, by these lines, to contribute to your 
ease in that matter, by assuring your Lordship that, as I have had 
no manner of concern in seeking after such a call, so I do not desire 
to be the occasion of the least prejudice to the interest of the town 
of Edinburgh. And I beg that neither your Lordship nor any 
others of the magistrates of the city may be in any perplexity on 
my account. 

" Your Lordship knows that whatever might have been the 
inclinations of my friends to have me settled in my own country, 
it was with reluctance I brought myself to be so much as passive in 
accepting the honour the good town conferred upon me, by calling 
me to the station I now fill. I can safely say it was not the pros- 
pect of gain that brought me hither. I bless God, who hath been 
pleased not to leave me so destitute either of friends or interest, as 
that I might not have obtained a more lucrative settlement else- 
where." 

The proposal, however, was effected, and Carstares became 
minister — first of the church and parish of the Grey Friars, 
and afterwards (in 1707) of the historic High Church, or 
Cathedral of St. Giles. 

In the Grey Friars Church his colleague was James 
Hart, a zealous minister and a fervid Scot, It is of him 
McCormick relates an anecdote which illustrates Hart's 
keen temper and Carstares' courtly forbearance and kindly 
charity. 

About the time of the Union, according to McCormick, 
"a national fast had been appointed, which the violent 
opposers of that scheme amongst the clergy would not 
observe, as they could not approve of the reasons for which 
it was appointed. Mr. Carstares had given his advice 
against the appointment, but as a zealous friend of the 
Union, he observed the fast. His colleague, who was equally 
zealous in his opposition to that measure, not only refused to 
observe it, but next Sunday took occasion, in the forenoon 
sermon, to throw out some bitter reflections upon the Union 
in general and upon certain contrivers and promoters of it 
in particular, who, he alleged, were traitors to their 
country and to the Church of Scotland, although some of 



XV.] HIS COLLEAGUE, JAMES HART. 283 

them were ministers of that Church, and had too great 
influence over their deluded brethren. 

" As this violent attack was directly pointed at Mr. Car- 
stares, it fixed the whole eyes of the congregation upon him, 
whilst, with great composure, he began to turn over the 
leaves of his Bible. His colleague's discourse being con- 
sidered by the people as a formal challenge to Mr. Carstares 
to vindicate his conduct, a great crowd from all corners of 
the city were assembled to hear him in the afternoon, when 
he gave out for his subject these words of the Psalmist, " Let 
the righteous smite me, it will not break my bones.'" From 
which he took occasion, with great calmness of temper, 
to vindicate his colleague from any suspicion of beiug 
deficient in point of regard and affection for him. That 
difference in opinion was the natural effect of the weakness 
and corruption of the human mind. That, though he 
differed from him in his sentiments upon some points, yet he 
was sure both of them had the same end in view. And that, 
as he knew the uprightness of his colleague's intentions, and 
the goodness of his heart, he was determined to consider any 
admonitions or rebukes directed to himself from that place 
as the strongest expressions of his love. 

This discourse had a wonderful effect upon the whole 
audience." * 

Of Carstares' gifts as a preacher we have no means of 
forming an estimate. The incidental notices of his 
sermons that occur in * Wodrow's Correspondence ' and 
elsewhere, are always laudatory ; but nothing remains on 
which we can found an independent judgment. The editor 
of his nephew William Dunlop's sermons says : " In his 
ministerial charge he was equally diligent and prudent, and 
applied himself with the greatest cheerfulness to the lowest 
and most toilsome offices thereof. He had an admirable 
gift, both of prayer, and preaching ; choosed always to 
insist on the most weighty and important subjects of religion, 
and delivered his sermons so gravely and distinctly, with 

* McCormick, p. 72. 



281 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

such an acceptable pathos and well placed accent, and all 
the other advantages of a natural and easy eloquence, as 
never failed to fix the attention of his hearers, and greatly 
to promote their edification. His sermons were of that sort 
as to be understood by the meanest capacities and admired 
by the best judges." * McCormick bears similar testimony. 

"He discharged the duties of his pastoral office with great 
fidelity and diligence, qualities which attended him in every 
sphere of life in which he was engaged. Such of his sermons 
as he has left behind him are written in a short-hand 
peculiar to himself, so that we cannot ascertain his charac- 
ter as a preacher from his compositions. It is certain 
he was much esteemed as a preacher in these times. His 
manner was warm and animated, his style strong and 
nervous, and at the same time chaste and correct. And 
although he had been for a considerable time out of the 
habit of preaching, yet he had such a comprehensive view of 
the great subjects of religion and so happy a talent of 
arranging his ideas upon every subject, as rendered this 
branch of his duty no great burthen to him." | 

In one able thus to turn aside from the envied post of 
a favoured courtier, and confidential adviser of a great mon- 
arch, to the quiet position of a ruler of a small university, 
and the comparatively obscure and commonplace avocations 
of a parish minister in a poor and struggling church, there 
surely were some of the best elements of the sound and 
equal mind, which carries its possessor safely and serenely 
through prosperity or adversity. In either place, Carstares 
appears alike at home, strong, wise, and competent ; adapt- 
ing himself to any circumstances and faithful in every duty. 
The change, however, from all the habits and interests of 
the last fifteen years of his life, was somewhat modified by 
the fact that Edinburgh, for some years after his settlement 
there, was the theatre of political action more momentous 
than any that had occupied the Scots, since the Keformation. 

* Preface, p. 10. t McCormick, p. 72. 



XVI] 285 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Union. 

The greatest triumph of the Augustan reign of Anne was 
the happy Union. King William had often said that the 
island could never be tranquil without a Union, and that if 
the two nations understood their own welfare they would 
not rest until it were effected ; * and he had left the design 
as a political legacy to his successors, unable himself to carry 
it through. Never, perhaps, in the history of England and 
Scotland had the public feeling been more mutually hostile 
than after the death of William. Never did an amicable 
incorporation of the kingdoms appear less possible, and 
yet in a few years that incorporation was accomplished. 
Sentiment, even of the most friendly and favourable type, is 
the weakest of all bases of political action ; and had the 
British Union rested on this, it would have been insecure, 
and probably short-lived. It had a firmer foundation on 
those political, social, and commercial necessities, which, by 
their constant tendency to embroil the two nations, proved 
that national prosperity and peace could only be attained 
by a combination of interests and rights. England had 
nothing to lose by changing her northern neighbour from a 
vindictive enemy, hanging on her most exposed frontier, 
into a humble rival in her foreign and colonial trade. 
Scotland had everything to gain through having the wider 
arena of English political and commercial life opened to her 
energy and ambition. 

She was to lose, indeed, her native legislature ; but it was, 
except, perhaps, the Polish Diet, the most turbulent and 

* Defoe's ' History of the Union.' Introductory, p. 32. 



286 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

impotent legislature in the world. Men like Queensberry, 
Stair, and John Duke of Argyll, must have felt, with bitter- 
ness, the narrow range to which their genius was restricted 
within the Parliament House of Edinburgh. Even Fletcher, 
the brilliant Cicero of the "country party," could not but 
long, while he denounced the Union, for a grander audience 
than that afforded by the Scots' Estates. Even Belhaven's 
perturbed and prophetic spirit would have been soothed, 
could he have foreseen his country's destined share in im- 
perial statecraft, war, and glory, — could a Father Anchises 
have unrolled for him the vision of the future, and showed 
him a Scotsman on the exalted seat of Lord High Chan- 
cellor of England — a Scotsman filling the metropolitan chair 
of Augustine, — Camperdown leading the British fleet to 
victory — Clyde saving the endangered empire of the East 
— Elgin and Dalhousie reigning over vast dependencies, in 
which a Scot in Belhaven's day was an alien, — Scotsmen 
taking the lead in every advance of science, and second to 
none in the ranks of British literature. 

The trading and mercantile classes had been convinced, 
by the fate of Darien, that extensive enterprise and large 
profits were inaccessible to them, unless they could enjoy 
free trade with England, and have a right to a share in her 
foreign and colonial traffic. 

The Church itself, much as it disliked and dreaded the 
prelacy of England, was aware that it would run less risk of 
assault under the protection of the stable legislature of 
Great Britain, pledged to maintain a Protestant succession, 
than if left to hold its perilous way amidst the turmoils and 
factions of Scotch Episcopacy, Jacobitism, and Cameronianism. 

Each class of the community had sound reasons for 
desiring a Union with England ; yet the general sentiment, 
which seldom follows the guidance of pure intelligence, was 
averse to the measure which the common welfare seemed to 
demand. A federal union might have been accepted without 
demur; but an incorporating union, which alone would 
resolve all the difficulties of the case, was almost universally 



XVI.] BARLEY. 287 

unpopular. All the pride of an ancient nationality, all the 
prejudices of a small and zealous community, were arrayed 
against it. It was abhorrent to the politico-religious fanati- 
cism which still reverenced the Solemn League and Cove- 
nant. It was dreaded by the Episcopal Jacobitism which 
clung to the hope of a restoration of prelacy and the Stuarts. 
It alarmed the rigid Presbyterianism of Crauford. It 
promised to realise none of the ideals of Fletcher's classical 
republicanism. The incorporating union, however, was that 
on which the whole question of permanent amalgamation, or 
separation, turned ; and no small credit is due to those 
statesmen who, keeping it steadily in view, withstood popular 
obloquy and rose superior to national predilection, and 
persevered until the vital point was finally won. In the 
labours of these, Carstares took an influential, though 
unobtrusive, part. The times were past when his opponents 
could reproach the Government with entrusting the whole 
Scottish Administration to his hands ; * but the great influence 
of his personal character and political sagacity remained, and 
was an acknowledged power amongst English and Scottish 
statesmen. While in Edinburgh he was in constant corres- 
pondence with the politicians of London ; while in London 
he maintained an equally active correspondence with Edin- 
burgh. 

Among his English correspondents was Harley, who was 
no less keen for union than Somers. I find a letter from 
Harley after the collapse of the first negotiations in 1703, 
and when the new Scottish Parliament was fiercely debating 
the proposals which were shaped into the " Act of Security." 
After expressing that difficulty of understanding the motives 
and affairs of other communities, which is a common English 

* "Those factious people [the Presbyterians] finding themselves 
encouraged from Court, where all things were then, and have during 
all the late reign, to the scandal of monarchy, been managed by the 
uncontrolled councils of an ambitious Presbyterian clergyman." — 'The 
State of Scotland, under the Past and Present Administration,' &c. 
1703. 



288 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

characteristic, he says, in reference to the affairs of Scot- 
land : — 

" To say the truth, very few speak at all about them ; and those 
who do (I do not mean any Ministers of State), speak with too little 
concern — less than they do of the King of Sweden and the Pole. 
I think this is not right ; for though Englishmen may not meddle 
about their affairs, I cannot but have a zeal for a nation so full of 
good and learned men, who have, in all ages, given such proofs of 
their learning and courage ; a nation sprung from the same original, 
inhabiting the same island, and professing the same religion. 

" These reasons, sir, make me a well-wisher and a servant to the 
nation, and fill me with grief to see a cloud gathering in the North, 
though no bigger than a man's hand. I wish some of you would 
do their endeavour to dispel that cloud : that some amongst your- 
selves (for none else you will suffer) would bind up the wound, 
would fling a garment over the nakedness of your country. Some 
papers have made a great noise of the independency of that king- 
dom ; I cannot imagine to what end, because it hath never been 
thought otherwise, or treated otherwise, since the days of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

" I must still profess myself full of hearty good wishes for the 
honour and prosperity of that kingdom ; and should be very glad 
to be able to answer several questions which now and then fall in 
my way to hear ; as, Whether such long sittings of parliament will 
not have fatal consequences, besides the altering that constitution, 
if often practised ? Whether the whole nation will acquiesce in 
renouncing the house of Hanover, and agree with another person ? 
Whether foreign subsidies will maintain the expense of a king and 
a court ? Whether a king of their own will ever procure them any 
sort of advantage in trade ; and what shall be given to their neigh- 
bours to obtain it? Whether, under a king of their own, the 
power of the nobles must not be increased, and the liberty of all 
the rest of the people proportionately diminished ? Whether the 
present constitution of their ecclesiastical regimen can be of long 
continuance under such a government ? and, Whether the hand of 
Joab is not in all this ? 

" I am unwilling to add an objection which strikes me dumb ; 
which is this : Here is a treaty set on foot by the public faith of 
both nations for an union ; so great a progress is made in it, that 
trade, and other things desired, seemed to be agreed ; and, without 
any regard to public faith or decency, &c, all is laid aside, and 



XVL] UNION NEGOCIATIONS. 289 

England is to be bound by a collateral act of another nation. Are 
men in earnest ? Does any single person believe this is the way 
to procure what they seem to desire ? But, sir, I fear I have said 
too much. Pardon the overflowings of my affection to your 
country and the desire of its prosperity. My confidence in your 
well-known candour, probity, and great prudence, encouraged this 
address." * 

This letter expresses fairly enough the general feeling of 
the English statesmen : a desire for the security which a 
union would guarantee ; a mild impatience of the apparently 
unreasonable and illogical Scotch opposition to it ; a vague 
dread of Scotch jealousy and touchiness ; dubiety as to the real 
condition of any party or question in the northern kingdom. 

Soon after receiving this letter, in August, 1703, Carstares 
went to London, where he remained till March, 1704. From 
the few letters in the Glasgow collection we gather that he 
was detained there partly by private concerns of his own, and 
partly by public business, among which he specially adverts 
to the claims of the universities to the Bishops' rents. There 
had been a design to deny these; and a letter withdrawing 
the gift of the rents was ready for the Queen's signature 
when, with the help of the Duke of Queensberry, Carstares 
obtained a renewal and confirmation of all that had been 
granted in William's reign. While securing this pro- 
vision for the universities, he declined to take any share 
of that portion of it assigned to his own University of 
Edinburgh. 

We miss in those years of the Union the frequent and 
familiar letters that used to be addressed by him to Dunlop, 
and we see little, if anything, of his private life. Nor is his 
presence in the councils and negociations of the time so 
obvious that we can everywhere mark the very part he took. 
We rather discover the extent of his power by the constant 
respect for his opinion, expressed in the correspondence of 
such men as Harley, Portland, Seafield, Stair, Argyll.- Mar, 
and others, charged with the conduct of the affairs of State ; 

* McCormick, p. 719. 

U 



290 WILLIAM CABS TABES. [Chap. 

and by the tacit acknowledgment, which the general 
deference to him implied, that his influence in the Church 
could either confirm or defeat the Treaty. 

The course of this great measure may be traced in full 
detail in the pages of Defoe, or, in luminous summary, in 
those of Mr. Hill Burton. We need not follow it here 
more closely than is necessary in order to understand 
Carstares's relation to it. His chief concern was to secure 
the Treaty from the hostility of the Established clergy. 
The days were over when ecclesiastical war-cries stirred 
the deepest passions of the nation. Redress for Darien 
and free trade w r ith England and her colonies were now 
watchwords of greater potency than Prelacy or Presbytery. 
The " country party," animated by the genius of Fletcher, 
thought to force what it considered justice to Scotland from 
her southern sister, by giving new prominence to all those 
points at which Scotch independence was, in English eyes, 
most menacing and capable of mischief. Hence the rejec- 
tion of the proposals of extended toleration of the Episcopal 
clergy; the Act securing the Protestant religion and the Pres- 
byterian government in terms stronger than any Act hitherto 
had used ;* and the Act of Security, which deliberately refused 
the Scottish Crown to the future sovereign of England unless, 
before Her Majesty's demise, "there be such conditions of 
government settled and enacted as may secure the honour 
and sovereignty of this crown and kingdom — the freedom, 
frequency, and power of parliaments — the religion, liberty, and 
trade of the nation — from English or any foreign influence." t 

While the sentiment of injured and jealous nationality was 
thus strong, the clergy, accustomed as they were to bring their 
politics into the pulpit, could do much to stimulate it and 
give it direction. Had they zealously opposed the Union, 
their influence was known to be still sufficient to render their 

* " As agreeable to the Word of God, and the only government of 
Christ's Church within this kingdom." — ' Account of the Proceedings of 
Parliament of 1703,' p. 44 et seq. 

f Ibid, p. 242 et seq. — Act of Security. 



XVI.] TEE CLERGY AND THE UNION. 291 

opposition fatal.* But although they could not be brought to 
petition or move in its favour, their opposition was judiciously- 
moderated, and restricted mainly to points at which they 
believed the Treaty was likely to infringe the rights of the 
Church and the jurisdiction of Presbytery ; and when the 
securities which they desired were provided, they (at the 
risk of forfeiting their popularity with the commonalty) gave 
their support to the Union party.! That they did so, was 
chiefly owing to the sagacious policy of Carstares. We can 
gather this, as I have indicated, not so much from any 
extant correspondence of his own (at this period very scanty), 
as from the tenor of the letters addressed to him, and from 
the respect which we can see the statesmen were aware his 
educated countrymen in general, and the clergy in particular, 
paid to his advice. "It may be questioned," says Mr. Hill 
Burton, " if any one, not in the immediate and responsible 
councils of the Crown, had so fully the means of anticipating 
the general character of the Treaty before it became public ; 
and the hints which he received, assumed the flattering form 
of applications for advice and counsel." J 

A letter, unsigned, but evidently written after the con- 
clusion of the Treaty by a member of the English Cabinet, 
bears the highest testimony to the value of Carstares's inter- 
positions. "Give me leave to assure you, sir," says the 
writer, " that the part you have acted in this great affair is 
sufficiently understood by all that know anything of the 
affairs of Scotland. And I daresay it will not be easily 
forgot, what all our great men are very sensible of, that the 
Union could never have had the consent of the Scotch 
Parliament, if you had not acted the worthy part you did." § 

The General Assembly was still, as it had always been, the 
great focus of ecclesiastical power. Its influence had in earlier 
times been virtually co-ordinate with that of the Parliament ; 

* McCormick, p. 75. 

f Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 159, 173, 225. 

X Burton, from 1688, vol. i. p. 430. 

§ McCormick, p. 76. 

U 2 



292 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

and even now the Estates could not afford to disregard the 
voice of the Church, as uttered in its annual convention. 
The Church, indeed, had of its own accord, begun to sap 
one of the foundations of the Assembly's power by imposing 
restrictions upon the admission of the laity to its councils, 
but these had, as yet, scarcely had time to operate * The 
right of annual meeting had been fully secured ; every 
district of the country was represented ; and the ministers 
and elders who formed the Supreme Court of the Church 
were, on the whole, just and influential representatives of the 
national religious belief and ecclesiastical polity. 

It was natural that a Churchman of Carstares's position and 
power should, as soon as possible after fixing his residence in 
Scotland, become a member of the Assembly. Accordingly, 
in the Assembly which met at Edinburgh in March 1704, 
he took his seat as representative of the University of 
Edinburgh.f His name appears, along with that of his old 
friend James Steuart, the Lord Advocate, in the list of a 
select committee appointed to prepare the " Form of 
Process," or rule of procedure in cases before the judicatories 
of the Church.J In the Assembly of 1705 he sat as one of 
the ministers of Edinburgh and representing the Presbytery. 
He, Principal Stirling of Glasgow, and Mr. James Brown, one 
of the ministers of Glasgow, were proposed for the office of 
Moderator ; and Carstares was elected by a majority. 

He made a formal speech on taking his seat, thus intro- 
ducing a practice which has continued to the present day, 
and which, along with other usages attaching to the office 
of Moderator, has tended to make the election to the chair 
more orderly and deliberate than it might otherwise have 

* By the Acts of Assembly of 1700 and 1704, which required subscription 
of the Confession of Faith from all elders returned as members of Assembly 
— Acts, it should be noted, which never were confirmed by Parliament. 

f MS. Eecords of Assembly, vol. for 1702-5, in College Library of 
Glasgow. 

% Acts of Assembly, 1704. The " Form of Process " was presented to 
the Assembly of 1706, and sent down to Presbyteries for approval, and 
passed into law in 1707. 



XVI.] ASSEMBLY OF 1705. 293 

been. " The method of premeditated and studied speeches 
is now come in at the opening of our assemblies," writes 
Wodrow, in 1715, " and was brought in by Mr. W. C, a good 
many years ago. It is attended with several inconveniences. 
It seems to prselimit the vote of the Assembly to a person 
concerted beforehand, otherwise the person chosen is at a 
stand, not having his speech ready. Besides, unless very 
cautious and general, it seems to prselimit the Assembly in 
their business, by promises in name of the Assembly to the 
commissioner, &c." * Those results, which Wodrow dreaded 
as evils, were, no doubt, foreseen by Carstares as among the 
advantages of the system he adopted ; and, upon the whole, 
the plan of having the choice of the Moderator settled be- 
forehand has tended to impart dignity and tranquillity to the 
proceedings of successive Assemblies. 

The foes of the Church had probably calculated upon the 
Assembly's indicating a readiness to assume an attitude of 
hostility to the coming project of a union, in a way which 
might have been embarrassing to the Government, or on 
its being divided into two factions of unionists and anti- • 
unionists. Difficulty and dissension were likewise antici- 
pated by the enemies of Presbytery in connection with the 
case of the contumacious and uncontrollable Hepburn,! 
who had now tried the forbearance of the Church to its 
utmost limit. An extreme Cameronian, admitted to the 
pale and ministry of the Establishment, he had for years 
set all its laws and usages at defiance, and lifted up a 
ranting " testimony " against its policy and principles. He 
was now finally condemned, and, notwithstanding his popu- 
larity with a considerable body of the people and the sym- 
pathy of the " True Blue " section of the Church, was quietly 
deposed.^ The sinister expectations of the troublers of Israel 
were thus disappointed ; and, in his address at the close of 
the Assembly, Carstares said, — " I hope, reverend brethren, 

* 'Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 301. f See ante, p. 234. 

% Acts of Assembly, 1705. 



294 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

that I shall not be judged by you to be much out of the 
way if I allude, with a respect to this Assembly and the 
enemies of our Church, to that which we have in the xlviii. 
Psalm. No doubt many who wish not well to our interest 
have these days past come hither to spy out our liberty, and 
to catch at something that might be matter for their drollery ; 
but they have seen the beauty of our harmony, the calmness 
with which our debates have been managed, the order that 
hath been in our proceedings, and the civil authority of the 
magistrates and the spiritual power of the Church kindly 
embracing each other. They saw it : they marvelled. They 
were troubled, and hasted away." * 

" Your being Moderator," writes John Duke of Argyll, to 
Carstares, " is a satisfaction to all honest men, and particu- 
larly to myself." t " Lord Portland," writes Seafield, " asked 
kindly about you. I told him you governed the Church, 
the University, and all your old friends here ; that you lived 
with great satisfaction, and was as much his servant as ever. 
He said it was some satisfaction to him to find that you and 
I, in whom King William reposed so great trust, were still 
f such consideration in the present reign." % 

Carstares opened the next Assembly with a sermon on Ps. 
xlvii. 8 ; and in this, as in the following Assembly of 1707, 
not oeing in the chair, he was able to take an active part in 
the debates. " His manner of speaking in Church courts," 
says McCormick, " was calm, sententious, and decisive — which, 
along with his influence over the most considerable members 
of the house, gave great weight to his opinion in every 
debate. Such was their respect for his character, that one 
sentence from him would often extinguish in a moment the 
most violent flame in the house. This authority, which he 
had acquired, he knew well how to maintain. In matters of 
lesser moment he seldom spoke at all ; in business of conse- 
quence he spoke only in the close of the debate, and it was 

* MS. Eecords. f McCormick, p. 735. 

% Ibid. p. 74. 



XVL] TEE CLERGY AND TEE UNION. 295 

a rare instance in which any adventured to speak after 
him." * 

Carstares could not always, however, succeed in restricting 
the action of the clergy to those which he considered wise and 
profitable courses. Appointing a fast was a favourite device 
when they felt that affairs of public importance, of which 
some official cognizance seemed due from the Church, were 
in progress. Carstares was aware how inappropriate this 
way of testifying their concern for the general welfare must 
appear to English statesmen, and much disliked it. He 
writes to Principal Stirling, in October 1706, after the 
Synod of Glasgow and Ayr had been fasting, " I return my 
kind thanks for the account you gave me of your synod, and 
should have been glad I had known what reasons were given 

in for your private fasts We are blessed with one 

memorable success after another against the common enemy " 
(the Episcopal- Jacobite party), " and how a day of fasting 
will look at such a time you may judge." t Again, to the 
same correspondent : " As for what concerns the great affair 
of the Union, that is the common subject of discourse, I can 
only say that the most grave and judicious ministers here do 
look upon it to be a matter of such weight and consequence, 
that the terms of it ought to be well understood ere positive 
sentiments about it be expressed, and especially by their 
brethren in pulpits, or by Church judicatures ; and they seem 
to think that the plain nature of the affair itself, as well as 
the multitude of those that wait for our halting, do call for 
great circumspection in our management. .... And it is 
not doubted, reverend brother, but that you will use your 
endeavours, as you have access, that the carriage of our 
brethren may be such in this matter as may be liable to no 
just exception, as a too hasty and peremptory expressing of a 
judgment about it (till it be fully known) will be. We here 
are indeed sensible that it is our duty to be earnest in prayer 
to God that He would so order this important business as the 

* McCornrick, p. 74. 

f Glasgow MSS., Lett. Scot, 1701-14. 



296 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

issue of it may be to His glory and the solid advantage of 
both kingdoms as to religious and civil concerns." * 

The Church's interests, in prospect of a union with prelatic 
England, had often engaged the Scottish Parliament; and 
Belhaven and his friends had been zealous to maintain that 
the treaty offered no security to the Church adequate to the 
danger which she would incur.f The Jacobites eagerly tried 
to fan the flame of discontent and apprehension; % but the great 
majority of the clergy were too wise, and were too wisely 
counselled by Carstares, to be led away by the zeal of inju- 
dicious allies or the false sympathy of covert foes. The com- 
mission of the General Assembly, which, in virtue of its 
ordinary powers, continued to act when the Assembly was 
not in session, represented the Church duringt he progress of 
the treaty with calmness and dignity ; and in its addresses 
to Parliament temperately stated those points in the measure 
which were considered defective. § The Commission com- 
plained of the English Sacramental Test as the condition of 
holding civil and military office, and urged that no oath or 
test of any kind, inconsistent with Presbyterian principles, 
should be required from Scottish Churchmen. They recoup 
mended that an obligation to uphold the Church of Scotland 
should be embodied in the Coronation Oath. They repre- 
sented the necessity of a " Commission for the Plantation of 
Kirks and Valuation of Teinds ; " and they concluded their 
fullest and most formal representation with an intimation 
that knowing, as they did, that twenty-six bishops sat in the 
House of Lords, which, on the conclusion of the treaty would 
have jurisdiction in Scottish affairs, they desired to state, 
with all respect, but all firmness, that it was contrary to the 
Church's " principles and covenants " that " any Churchman 
should bear civil offices and have power in the Common- 
wealth." 

* Glasgow MSS., Lett. Scot. 1701-14. 

f Defoe. Minutes of Pari., &c, p. 55 et seq. 

% Burnet, vol. v. p. 289. 

§ Defoe : Appendix, p. 13 ct seq. Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 173. 



XVI.] COMMISSION'S REPRESENTATIONS. 297 

These representations had due effect.* The bench of 
bishops of course could not be removed. The operation of 
the Test Act in England could not be meddled with, though 
its scandal and injustice were undeniable ; f but as a kind of 
equivalent for this grievance, and to guard the Scotch univer- 
sities and schools against the infection of prelacy, it was 
enacted that every professor and teacher should, ere his 
admission, subscribe the Confession of Faith as the confession 
of his faith, and bind himself, in the Presbytery's presence, 
to conform to the discipline and worship of the Established 
Church. It was provided that the unalterable establishment 
and maintenance of the Presbyterian Church should be 
stipulated by an Act prior to any other Act that should ratify 
the treaty, and should then be embodied in the Act of ratifi- 
cation ; and that the first oath the British Sovereign should 
take, on his accession and before his coronation, should be 
an oath to maintain "the government, worship, discipline, 
rights, and privileges of the Church of Scotland." % The 
minor points, as to kirks and teinds, &c, were satisfactorily 
disposed of, and the Church saw her firmness and moderation 
crowned with an adequate success. 

The country ministers were, in general against the Union ; § 
and it is probable that the position which Carstares took on 

* There were more addresses than one ; but the above is the substance 
of the most elaborate given by Defoe; against which it may be noted 
that Eothes, Marchrnont, Polwarth, and some other elders entered their 
protest. Defoe : Appendix, p. 16. 

f " Letter from a gentleman in Scotland to his friend in England, 
against the Sacramental Test." London, 1708. 

% Hill Burton, from 1688, vol. i. p. 466 et seq. This is still the first oath 
taken by the Sovereign. 

§ " Many of the clergy (the far greater part whereof being young men 
of little experience and warm zeal, are too easily imposed upon, and being 
by a melancholy constitution apt to entertain fears and jealousies) did 
become very cross and uneasy, and as now oppose, being entangled by the 
craft of those who pretend friendship of late ; and grown jealous of their old 
friends, were too busy to fright the vulgar (who are much inclined to 
follow their preachers) with dangers approaching to the Kirk govern- 
ment, which they are beyond expression fond of." — Letter of Earl of 
Marchrnont to Somers, Nov. 9, 1706. 'Marchrnont Papers,' vol. iii. 305. 



298 WILLIAM CAB STARES. [Chap. 

the side of the Court and Government, was more uncom- 
promising than it would have been, had he not felt that he 
must concede as little as possible, lest he should encourage 
the opposition. This may explain the fact of his having 
abstained, in the Commission, from voting for the address 
which has been quoted (though he did not join in the 
protest of Marchmont and the other elders), and which he 
presumably, like these protestors, considered too provocative 
of English ill-feeling, by its testimony against bishops, and 
too suggestive of an unbecoming distrust of the wisdom and 
goodwill of the Parliament of his own country.* The heat 
of the country ministers was also allayed by one or two 
judicious " circular letters," composed by Carstares and sent 
to the Presbyteries, by the authority of the Commission, as 
occasion seemed to require. Of these circulars, which were 
pronounced by Harley to have been " eminently serviceable 
in promoting the Union," t the following is a specimen : — 

" A letter from the Commission of the General Assembly 
to the Presbytery of Hamilton : — 

Edinburgh, December 6, 1706. 

" Rev. dear Brethren, — The General Assembly of this Church 
having appointed us to take care that it suffer no prejudice through 



* McCormick, pp. 754, 758. 

The attitude of the Commission was at the most merely negative, and 
indicated so little active hostility, that the consternation which their 
address appears to have spread through the ranks of the Unionists is 
almost incomprehensible. The Duke of Hamilton, writing on 14th 
November, refers to the Commission as giving plain proof of the 
Church's aversion to the Union. " Your lordship may easily perceive, 
whoever they be who . undertook to bring the Presbyterians into this 
measure have totally failed, for in this Commission of the Church, though 
there were but thirty lay elders of the greatest consideration amongst them, 
yet there were but her Majesty's two chaplains and one other minister of 
the whole Commission of a different sentiment, which shows the greatest 
unanimity that has been known in such an Assembly ; and you may 
depend upon it this will have the utmost influence upon the people, who 
are the most affectionate to the present Establishment." — * Marchmont 
Papers,' vol. iii. p. 425. 

t Ibid. p. 757. 



XVI.] CIRCULAR LETTER. 299 

neglect of due application to the Honourable Estates of Parliament, 
or any other judicatory concerned in the management of public 
affairs, we have in this juncture, wherein a treaty of union with 
the neighbouring kingdom is under deliberation, before the repre- 
tatives of our nation endeavoured, and are still endeavouring, to 
exoner our consciences in doing what we judge incumbent upon us 
for securing the doctrine, worship, discipline, government, rights, 
and privileges of this Church, as now by the great goodness of God 
the same are established among us; and being informed of dis- 
orders and tumults in some parts of the country,* which the 
enemies of our present happy establishment may be ready to im- 
prove, though without ground, to the disadvantage and reproach of 
this Church, we do look upon it as our duty to recommend to all 
our brethren that, as they have in their stations access, they do 
discountenance and discourage all irregularities and tumults that 
tend to disturb the government of our gracious Sovereign the 
Queen, to whom we are in gratitude, as well as duty, under the 
highest obligations ; seeing, in the kind providence of God, we by 
her good and wise management enjoy so many advantages, and 
upon whose preservation our peace and the. security of all that's 
dear to us do, under God, much depend. This in name, and by the 
order of the Commission of the General Assembly of the National 
Church, is subscribed by, rev. dear brethren, your affectionate 
brother and servant in the Lord, 

" William Carstares, 

" Moderator pro tempore.'" f 

It is evident that the clergy must have entertained a 
profound respect for the moral power and political influence, 
which they knew lay behind an address such as this, else the 
circular letters could never have exercised the control which 
is ascribed to them J 

* There had been disturbances in Glasgow and its neighbourhood, and 
the most strictly Presbyterian districts had been the most agitated. 

f Defoe: Appendix, p. 25. The Union was passed between two 
general Assemblies, and the Presbytery of Hamilton had petitioned that it 
should be delayed till after the Assembly met. 

X Their influence is plainly attested by the correspondence in the 
Carstares State Papers. Laing, who makes much of the clergy's oppo- 
sition, says " the violence of the Presbyteries was restrained, or their 
petitions were intercepted; by circular letters from Carstares, artfully 



300 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

The English and Scotch Commissioners completed the 
Articles of the Treaty of Union, on the 23rd of July 1706. 
After much excitement in Parliament, rioting in Edinburgh, 
threats of rebellion in some parts of the country, trickery 
and alleged bribery among the members of the House, the 
Treaty was finally ratified and approved by the Scottish 
Estates on the 16th of January 1707. On the 25th of 
March the Estates were finally adjourned.* 

The debates upon the Treaty were proceeding simul- 
taneously in the English Parliament. They betrayed 
no slight apprehensions of the evils that might ensue 
from the strong position conceded in the Treaty to the 
Church of Scotland. The apprehensions were partly 
owing to Episcopal prejudice, partly to the still vivid 
memory of the time when the Solemn League and Covenant 
had swept over England like a tornado, and overturned her 
Established Church. But common sense and statesmanship 
prevailed ; the opposition, though strong, was unsuccessful ; t 
and to their honour it is recorded that some of the most 
strenuous advocates of the Union spoke from the bench of 
bishops. A correspondent writes to Carstares on the 8th of 
March 1707. 



calculated to represent the Commission as indifferent, or as not indisposed, 
towards a Union ; but the English Ministers in vain solicited the approba- 
tion of the Church, which that subtle politician was unable to procure." 
'History of Scotland' (3rd edit.), vol. iv. p. 371. See also Somerville's 
< Keign of Anne,' p. 225 (edit, of 1798). 

# The Duke of Hamilton's vacillation and trickery (not to call it 
treachery) seem undeniable. The disbursement of the £20,000, which 
God olphin sent to the North, suggests grave suspicions of bribery. It 
was expended in sums varying between £12,325, given to Queensberry the 
commissioner, and £11 2s., allotted to Lord Banff; whose parish minister 
writes to Carstares soliciting his " kind influence for his lordship's 
encouragement " in the circumstances of his changing his religion from 
l^oman Catholic to Protestant, and desiring to take his seat in Parliament 
— we may presume to vote for the Union. 

f Burnet (who took a leading part in promoting the measure), vol. v. 
p. 293. 



XVI.] UNION EFFECTED. 301 

" When the Act for securing the true Protestant religion and 
Presbyterian Church Government was debated by the committee in 
the House of Lords, several lords and four bishops spoke very 
warmly against ratifying, approving, and confirming it, though 
they were not against giving the Scots a security that it should be 
maintained among them. But the A. of Canterbury* said he had 
no scruple against ratifying, approving, and confirming it within 
the bounds of Scotland. That he thought the narrow notions of 
all Churches had been their ruin ; and that he believed the Church 
of Scotland to be as true a Protestant Church as the Church of 
England, though he could not say it was so perfect. Several of the 
bishops spoke very much in the same strain, and all of them 
divided for ratifying, approving, and confirming the Church Act, 
except the four that spoke against it, and the Bishop of Durham, 
who went away before the vote. The other High Church bishops 
were not at the House that day." 

On the 6th of March 1707 the Act of Union received the 
Koyal assent, and the first British Parliament was summoned 
to meet upon the 1st of May. . . . " I do assure you," 
wrote Sir David Nairn, Under-Secretary of State, to Car- 
stares, " the Queen is very sensible of your services, which 
she had several times information of from me, by the Duke 
of Queensberry and Earl of Mar's commands." f 

Early in the summer Carstares went up to London, and 
presented himself at Court. " When I had the honour to 
wait upon her Majesty," he WTites, to Principal Stirling, 
on the 15th of July, from London, " I was received with all 
the goodness that I could desire." % The Queen granted him 
a private interview, at which she personally thanked him for 
his services in promoting the Union, and presented him with 
one of the silver Union medals — "a very few of which," 
says McCormick, "she had made to be cast off for her 
particular friends." Carstares found that his old friend 
Portland had gone to the Continent, and wrote to him to let 



* Tenison. McCormick, p. 759. 

t Secretary of State ; afterwards leader of the Jacobite rising in 1715, 

% Glasgow, MSS. ' Lett, England, 1702-1713.' 



302 WILLIAM CARS TABES. [Chap. 

him know how he had been received at Court. Portland 
writes in reply, on the 15th of August, from Sorgvliet : — 

" Je vous assure, que ce n'est pas avec peu de satisfaction, que 
je recu la votre de Londres du 17 passe, et que je n'ay pas peu de 
chagrin de ce que je suis ici pendant que vous estes en Angleterre ; 
puis que j'ay toujours conserve mes sentiments pour vous ; une ho- 
neste homme et un vieux ami est ce que j'estime le plus. Ce que 
vous me mandez de la maniere dont la Reine vous a recu, me fait 
une vraye plaisir ; elle temoigne connoitre en vous un veritable 
serviteur. Je vous prie de me continuer toujours votre amitie, 
et de me croire inalterablement votre tres humble serviteur, 

" Portland." * 

A General Assembly had been held in the spring of 
1707, ere yet the Act of Union had come into operation. 
There is no reference to the Union in its printed records; 
and it should appear that its leaders, finding that their 
brethren would not, bless the Treaty, thought it best to pass 
it by in silence. Their calmness and self-control were highly 
appreciated by the Government. " I am very glad," Lord 
Mar wrote to Carstares, " your Assembly proceeded so 
calmly ; 'tis not the first time the Church of Scotland has 
been obliged to your good counsel." f 

By the time the Assembly of 1708 met, the ancient 
Parliament, which the ecclesiastical convention had so often 
controlled, so often withstood, had passed away for ever. 
With the demise of the Scottish Legislature much of the 
strength and glory of the Supreme Court of the Church 
departed. The Assembly could never again expect to 
influence the British, as it had influenced the Scottish, 
Parliament. 

The leaders of Scotch political life, attracted to St. 
Stephen's, and exposed there to all the influences of English 
society and of a powerful and predominant Episcopacy, were 
no longer likely to take their seats as elders in the Scotch 
Church Court, and to lend their weight to its deliberations. 

It was of importance that the first Assembly that met in 
* McCormick, p. 77. f Ibid. p. 762. 



XVI.] ASSEMBLY OF 1708. 303 

these altered circumstances should choose as its president 
one whose Presbyterianism and Churchmanship had stood 
keen tests, and who yet enjoyed the confidence of the Govern- 
ment, and had been a promoter of the Union, and who, by 
the worth of his character and dignity of his position, would 
do honour to the Moderator's chair. The choice naturally 
fell upon Carstares. He was elected Moderator, for the 
second time. His election, he told the Assembly, was a 
" proof of their moderation, and that they could allow a 
differing from them in sentiments as to some particular 
things, and retain love and charity." * 

The Queen's letter to the Assembly made no special 
reference to the Union, although referring in commendation 
to the " zeal and affection," which the Church had shown 
during the recent attempt at a French invasion in the 
Jacobite interest^ Neither in the Acts of Assembly, nor in 
the address to the Queen, is the great change in the con- 
stitution of the nation named. Carstares's opening speech 
is occupied with the threatened invasion, rather than with 
the abolished Legislature and the new condition of things. 
" The Presbyterians of Scotland," he said, " have too great a 
concern for the Protestant Churches, and too great a detes- 
tation of Popery and tyranny, and see and hear of too many 
dismal instances of French government, not to have an 
abhorrence both of the designs of Versailles and the pre- 
tences of St. Germains."{ 

This avoidance of a subject, which could not but be 
uppermost in all minds, indicates to indifference to it, nor 
any unanimity regarding it ; but rather reveals a state of 
feeling and opinion, in which it was tacitly admitted that 
the subject could not be approached without danger. 
National pride had been too recently wounded, ecclesiastical 
jealousy too bitterly irritated, the practical effects of the 
Union, in Church and State, in society and in trade, too little 

* MS. Records, Glasgow, 1708. 

f See Hill Burton, from 1688. vol. ii. p. 1. 

X Acts of Assembly. MS. Records, Glasgow. 



304 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

tested, to allow of any body of Scottish Presbyterians giving 
it a dispassionate and unprejudiced discussion. Carstares's 
wisdom and moderation were rewarded by, as tliey were 
reflected in, the dignified reticence of the first post-Union 
Assembly. The predominating control of that Moderate 
party, which he had largely helped to consolidate, and which 
he now led, — a control that was to last for more than a 
century, — was already established. 



XVII.] 305 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

Calamy — Squabble between Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow — 
Carstares and Calarny's Visit. 

We are indebted to Edmund Calamy, who made a journey 
to Scotland in 1709, for some picturesque glimpses of 
Carstares and of his manner of life in Edinburgh. Before 
quoting, however, from the pleasant gossip of his diary, we 
may notice a squabble (of which he was the proximate cause) 
which arose between the Universities of Edinburgh and 
Glasgow, and which stirred many academic passions at the 
time. Calamy, like many English Dissenters, was probably 
ambitious of obtaining that degree of D.D. or LL.D. which 
he could not hope to receive from any university in his 
native country ; and Carstares was no doubt anxious to do 
honour to his friend by making him a doctor of divinity 
of the University of Edinburgh. When Calamy came to the 
North the degree was accordingly conferred. 

A few weeks later the University of Aberdeen granted 
him the same degree ; and on his arrival in Glasgow, the 
university there bestowed on him a silver box containing 
a third diploma of D.D.* In this instrument, while his Aber- 
deen degree was referred to, no notice was taken of his 
having been admitted to the doctorate of Edinburgh, This 
slight was naturally resented by the Senatus of Edinburgh ; 
Carstares especially was very indignant,! and felt the affront 
all the more because his own nephew, Alexander Dunlop, 
was one of the professors in the peccant university. He 
writes, on the 28th May 1709, to Principal Stirling : — 

* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 212. 

f Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 17. 

X 



306 WILLIAM CABSTABES. [Chap. 

" I had ono from you some days ago, recommending to me for 
charity one Mr. Fleming, an Episcopal minister, to whom I gave 
what I could conveniently spare at that time. I had another from 
you yesterday, recommending one Mr. Dunlop, a student of 
divinity at your college, to whom I showed all civility, but could, 
at present, give him no assistance in what he desired. This is all 
I have been favoured with from you, since you intented a process 
against our society, and acted in the affair as judge and parties too ; 
having by your sovereign power passed sentence upon us, though 
I hear it was not nemine contradicente, some not being willing to 
drive too furiously till they knew their way. I am sorry that your 
college should do anything that tends so plainly to break all 
measures betwixt us, seeing it is a thing that cannot be retrieved ; 
nor do we intend to give you the least trouble that it may be so, for 
we indeed treat it more with scorn than resentment, as, we are apt 
to think, many others of sense will do here and elsewhere too. 
Mr. dimming * hath been with me, and acquainted me with the 
boundless liberality of your society, even when not desired and 
when he was a professor amongst us. This says so much of itself 
that I need say nothing. I heard this day from the Eev. Mr. 
Osburn, j who much laments the circumstances of that country ; but 
I have had no letter from your very rev. and much esteemed friend 
Dr. Middletoun ; nor do I think will he load you with compli- 
ments for your degrees ad eundem. I could have wished that my 
good friend Pardovan had spared his discourses upon a subject he 
had not been well-informed of, and when what he said could not 
but savour a little of partiality. But I apprehend, we shall have 
no great prejudice by all this management, even though supported 
by the weight and lustre of silver boxes, — which will only oblige 
you to be at the expense of gold ones when any person of quality 
gets a degree, which is no rare thing in England." 



* John Gumming, Eegius Professor of Church History in the University 
of Edinburgh, who had received no degree there, was made "doctor 
utriusque juris," a doctor of laws, by the University of Glasgow, without 
any consultation with his own principal. 

Bower, vol. ii. p. 25. Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 17. 

f Osburn was one of the clergy and professors of Aberdeen. Dr. 
Middletoun had been dean of the diocese of Aberdeen under the Epi- 
scopacy, and, having conformed, was now Principal. Walter Steuart, of 
Pardovan, was the author of the { Collections and Observations concerning 
the Worship, &c, of the Church of Scotland,' published in 1709. 



XYIL] DISPUTE WITH GLASGOW. 307 

To this rather testy reclamation Stirling replies, — 

" I could answer the charge so as to satisfy the impartial and 
unconcerned, yet it is in terms so high, and so far from the Eev. 
Mr. Carstares's usual strain of temper, that I think it advisable for 
me to make no particular return at this time, lest I should fall into 
expressions which you might no less challenge ; but I shall be 
willing, when this heat is over, to subject the angry expression of 
yours to your own review." * 

The sting of the offence lay not merely in the disparage- 
ment of the rights of the University of Edinburgh (although 
these had been amply guaranteed by the charter of James 
VI. in 1582, and by an Act of the Parliament of 1621), but 
also in the suspected design of drawing to Glasgow those 
English students, whom it was Carstares's plan to attract to 
Edinburgh and provide for there. Among the Dissenters 
in the South there was a party in favour of Glasgow, with 
Dr. Williams at its head, while Calamy stood by Edinburgh. 
He writes to Carstares, after his return to England, " There 
is a rumour spread among us that your Lord Advocate 
should say that Edinburgh has no more right to give a 
doctor's degree than St. Paul's School has with us. This 

makes some triumph, and keeps others silent Mr. 

Smith, that came to town with us from Glasgow, does ill 
offices. He magnifies Glasgow to the skies and runs down 
Edinburgh. I believe he may have some instructions." t 

The ill-feeling gradually died away, and Glasgow did not 
attempt a repetition of the offence; but the memory of it 
rankled for a time — as can be traced in this letter to 
Alexander Dunlop, the young professor of Greek, who had 
owed his preferment very much to his uncle's influence : — 

"Edinburgh, Xov. 24, 1709. 
" Dear Nephew, — I have two from you, one of which was only 
recommending to me a young man whom I am in little capacity to 
serve, though I have got his brother settled, who was also recom- 
mended by you As for reflections upon the professors of 

* Glasgow MSS., ' Lett. Scot.' t Murray Dunlop MSS. 

x 2 



308 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

your society, none of ours are guilty of them, and for my part I 
never used such unworthy methods as to any society of learning in 
my country. I detest such a way of retaliating the affront that 
some of yours put upon us, though it was of a nature that, in its 
circumstances, was as much levelled at debasing of our society as 

was in the power of those that did us the injury I am much 

grieved for my dear sister, as to my unhappy nephew, your 
brother.* I greatly sympathise with her, and shall endeavour to 
get some account of him. My dear love to her. I shall delay 
writing to her till I have something to say. He hath drawn a bill 
of 61. sterling upon his Uncle James, which, you may be sure, he will 

not pay I have not had for some time so much leisure as to 

write so long a letter. Be assured that I fixedly am, dear nephew, 
yours to love and serve you, 

" W. Caestakes." j 

Calamy timed his visit to Scotland so as to reach Edin- 
burgh during the session of the General Assembly. In the 
Assembly of 1709, which met on the 14th of April in St. 
Giles's Church, Carstares sat as representative of his univer- 
sity ; and he, as retiring Moderator, prefaced the proceedings 
by a sermon on the text (Ps. cxx. 9), — " Because of the house 
of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good." % " His doctrine/' 
says Wodrow — who begins his letters from the Assembly to 
his wife with this year — "was, in the general, that every 
good person should be of a public spirit, and be concerned 
about the good of the house of God as well as civil interests. 
He proved it from Scripture instances of Moses, and the 
instance of the woman — 1 Sam. iv., two last verses — David, 
and several others. He gave the reasons of it, and the 
methods we were to evidence our public spirit in no unlawful 
thing, but in everything suitable to our station, in prayer, in 
the keeping up communion of saints, in keeping up the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and in walking wisely 
towards those that are without — where he recommended 
charity and ingenuity [ingenuousness] in dealing with those 
of the Episcopal communion, who did not think it fit to join 

* John, the eldest. 
f Graham Dunlop MSS. J Correspondence, vol. i- p. 1. 



XVII.] CALAMY IN EDINBURGH. 309 

with us, and avoiding harshness and bitterness of spirit 
towards them ; and told us that rnorosity and disingenuity 
will no way recommend us in dealing with them. Which 
expressions some looked upon as what contained a tacit 
reflection upon ourselves. He had certainly a very neat and 
well-worded discourse." 

Calamy arrived in Edinburgh on Saturday the 16th, and 
on Monday was conducted by Carstares to the Assembly. 
" I was placed," he says,* " upon the bench at the foot of the 
throne, at the right hand of the Moderator, and had liberty 
to attend from day to day and hear all that passed, making 
my remarks and observations. To get the better insight into 
their affairs, I not only went into the ' Committee of Over- 
tures ' and the * Committee of Bills,' t but had a meeting 
every evening (over a glass of wine), which had in it one out 
of each of their synods, who by kindly giving me an account 
of what had passed in their respective synods, with regard to 
the several matters laid before that General Assembly, gave 
me a clear and distinct view of their proceedings. 

" When I afterwards told Mr. Carstares of this aim and 
practice, he, with his wonted frankness, cried out, ' Verily, to 
spy out our nakedness are you come ! and had you spent ever 
so much time in contriving a way to discover all our defects 
at once, you could not have fixed on one more effectual.' 
That which I take to have been more remarkable," adds 
Calamy (and it indicates how deeply the liberal and mode- 
rate principles of Carstares had penetrated the leading 
minds of the Church), " was that not one in all the company 
was for the jure divino of the Presbyterian form of Church 
government, though they freely submitted to it." 

"No man in the Assembly," he continues, " was heard 
with more respect than Mr. Carstares. He was commonly 
one of the last in speaking, and for the most part drew the 

* Calamy, vol. ii. p. 152. The quotations which follow will all be found 
in vol. ii. between p. 152 and p. 192. 

f Committees charged with the preparation of the business to be laid 
before the House. 



310 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

rest into his opinion, when he thought fit to declare himself 
with openness. Yet I once saw him a little put to it; 
meeting with what would have tried some other men, though 
he got easily through. It was upon occasion of somewhat 
referred to the Assembly by the Synod of East Lothian. 
In which case it was moved that the members of that synod 
should withdraw, as was, it seems, the usual way.' Mr. 
Carstares said he thought there was no great occasion for 
that now. It would take more time than they could well 
spare, and the matter depending was of no great importance. 
But a certain old gentleman stood up and said they both 
must and should withdraw, according to custom, before the 
matter proceeded. 

" Mr. Carstares replied he was much mistaken if the thing 
depending was not of that nature that it might be foreseen 
that the brethren would pretty generally concur in their 
sentiments without dividing ; . . . . however, he offered freely 
to withdraw with his brethren if it was insisted on. Upon 
which the old gentleman asked Mr. Carstares for what 
reason his opinion might not be of as much weight as 
another's ? ' I, sir ' (said he), ' am as good a man as your- 
self, bating that you have a sprinkling of Court holy water, 
which I must own myself a stranger to, and never affected to 
meddle with. I tell you again, sir, you shall withdraw, or 
we'll go no farther.' To which Mr. Carstares, with great meek- 
ness, made this reply : ' Dear brother, I can more easily forgive 
this peevish sally of yours than you perhaps will be able to 
forgive yourself, when you come sedately to reflect upon it ; ' 
and so withdrew. The matter was soon determined with a 
nemine contradicente ; but the angry old gentleman after- 
wards could not rest without asking Mr. Carstares's pardon." 

Calamy admits us to a last interview with an old ac- 
quaintance : — 

" Meeting Mr. Carstares in my way, he desired I would be with 
him at four o'clock that afternoon, and keeping myself free from 
all other engagements be ready to go where he would conduct me. 
Querying where, he replied I might safely venture under his con- 



XVII.] CALAMY IN EDINBURGH. 311 

duct. He carried me to old Sir James Steuart's — the wonder of 
his age for vivacity and spirit, briskness of parts and readiness 
of memory, considering his years. Bishop Burnet says he was 
\ a man of great parts, and of as great ambition.' We found him 
sitting in an elbow-chair, to which he was confined. He embraced 
me, and intimated how well pleased he was that I would pay a 

visit to an old man worn-out and just going off the stage 

Salutations being over, he rang a bell and gave orders to ,his 
servant for wine and glasses, ~&c, straightly charging him to 
appear no more until he heard the bell ring. If any company 
came his master was engaged, and not to be disturbed on any 
account whatever. The servant followed orders, and Sir James 
entered into free discourse about the civil and religious interests of 
this island, the great necessity and difficulty of the union between 
England and Scotland, &c. He showed it impossible to have 
secured their Church settlement, or kept out the Pretender 
without it, and how it might be best improved. On all which heads 
he offered a great many very noble thoughts, which showed a 

wonderful and uncommon knowledge of men and things 

I cannot remember I ever spent a couple of hours in free conver- 
sation with more satisfaction in my whole life." * 

On the second Sunday of his stay in Edinburgh, Calamy 
occupied Carstares's pulpit, and preached a sermon on the 
text, " The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch," 
which was publicly denounced as Latitudinarian. " Mr. 
Carstares," he says, " with great mildness and prudence 
afterwards replying in the same pulpit, I heard no more of 
the matter." 

One more extract and we shall have done with the good 
Calamy : — 

"I was one day invited by the masters of the college to go with 
them to Leith, to take a fish dinner, with which they were to 
entertain their Principal, Carstares, according to annual custom. I 
found the way thither exceedingly pleasant, and that a fine and 
convenient port Among other fish there was one I had neither 

* Sir James Steuart, in 1709, retired from the office of Lord Advocate, 
and was succeeded by Sir David Dalrymple, fifth son of the first Lord 
Stair, and one of the Commissioners of the Union, whom he again super- 
seded in 1711. 



312 WILLIAM CAR ST ABES. [Chap. 

seen nor heard of before — a sea-cat, the head and tail like those of 
a cat, but the flesh very white and exceedingly firm ; .... an 
admirable fish, rather beyond a turbot. I was extremely pleased 
with the day's entertainment and conversation. One thing that 
gave a peculiar relish was the entire freedom and harmony between 
the principal and the masters of the college, they expressing a 
veneration for him as a common father, and he a tenderness for 
them as if they had all been his children." * 

These notices of Carstares, slight as they are, throw some 
little light on his ordinary walk and conversation among his 
friends and neighbours in Edinburgh, and bring into pleasant 
relief the same "traits of character — kindliness, geniality, 
sagacity, charitable tolerance — which we find revealing 
themselves in his letters, and which are ascribed to him by 
his original biographer. " His religion," says McCormick, 
" was neither tinctured with the extravagancies of enthusiasm 
nor the rigours of superstition." t 

"As his piety was unfeigned, so his charity was unbounded, 
more so indeed than his circumstances could' well afford ; for, 
whilst he had one farthing remaining in his pocket, he could not 
turn aside from any necessitous object that claimed his assistance. 
This was so well known to the poor that, whenever he went abroad, 
he was perpetually harassed by them, and was at last obliged to 
submit to a regulation, proposed to him by one of his friends who 
knew his foible ; which was, to put only so much money in his 
pocket as he could conveniently spare for the purposes of ordinary 
charity. J 

" Amidst that multiplicity of business in which he was per- 
petually engaged, it is remarkable that he found abundance of 
leisure for the duties of hospitality. His house was a place of 
resort to all the youth of the best families and the most promising 

* " A cold treat given the Principal and Masters of the College, one 
evening, was all that I could prevail with them to accept " (in return for 
all their civilities, and a degree), says Calamy. 

f McCormick, p. 88, et seq. 

% Among other traces of his charity in giving, I find in his papers 
(Murray Dunlop MSS.) a receipt from the treasurer of the Maiden 
Hospital, of date 7th Feb. 1706, for a donation of 1007. sterling, a large 
subscription from a man of Carstares's fortune in those days. 



XVII.] CABELL, THE CURATE. 313 

hopes, who were generally recommended to his attention during 
their course at the University ; and he failed not to improve the 
opportunities which his station afforded him, of instilling into their 
minds, along with an ardour for study, the best regulations for 
their future conduct. Many of them, who have since acted their 
part in the most conspicuous stations, have not scrupled to own 
that it was to him they were indebted for the best maxims both in 
public and private life. The Duke of Argyll, in particular, 
was early recommended to him by his father, and continued to 
advise with him in every matter of importance in which he was 
concerned, from the time he entered upon public life until Mr. 
Carstares's death. 

" The clergy of all denominations were welcome to his family ; 
particularly such of the Episcopal clergy as were deprived of their 
livings at the Eevolution. He always treated them with peculiar 
tenderness and humanity.* He often relieved their families when 
in distress, and took care to dispense his charities in such a manner 
as he knew would be least burthensome to them. Some of them, 
who were his yearly pensioners, never knew from what channel 
their relief flowed, till they found by his death that the source of 
it was dried up. 

" He was sometimes ingenious in devising methods of imposing 
upon the modesty and pride of such as would have rejected' his good 
offices with disdain, if he had not disguised his intentions. We 
shall give one instance out of many that are told of him. 

" One Caddeljf an ejected Episcopalian clergyman, sometimes 
waited upon him when he came to Edinburgh. One clay, when 
Caddel came to call upon him, he observed that his cloaths were 
thread-bare ; and, eying him narrowly, as he went away, he desired 
him to call again two days after, pretending he had some commis- 
sion to give him before he went to the country. He was no sooner 
gone, than Mr. Carstares sent for his taylor, and desired him to 
make a suit of cloaths that would answer himself as to length, but 
not so wide by two or three inches, and to have them sent home 

* " At the Eevolution, Mr. Carstares laid down a plan for the main- 
tenance of such of the Episcopal clergy as were removed from their 
churches, out of the Bishops' Rents. But the Ministry always found some 
pretext for applying this fund to other less charitable purposes." 

f Cadell, properly, or Calder, "a dull, scandalous fellow," according to 
Wodrow (Correspond, vol. i. p. 475), was the pamphleteer, too rudely 
assailed by the Rev. John Anderson, of Dumbarton, in his 'Curate Calder 
Whipt.' 



314 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 



about the hour at which Caddel had engaged to call upon him. 
Caddel kept his appointment ; but, upon entering the room, found 
Mr. Carstares in a violent fit of passion at his taylor for mistaking 
his measure, so that neither coat, waistcoat, nor breeches would fit 
upon him. At last, turning to Caddel, who agreed with him that 
it was impossible he could ever wear them ; then, says he, they are 
lost if they don't fit some of my friends ; and, by the bye, adds he, 
I am not sure but they may answer you : be so good as try, for it 
is a pity they should be thrown away. Caddel complied, after 
some importunity ; and, to his surprise, found they answered as if 
they had been made for him ; upon which Mr. Carstares ordered 
the cloaths to be packed up, and sent to his lodgings. Next day, 
upon putting them on, he found a ten-pound note in one of the 
pockets, which he naturally imagined Mr. Carstares had forgot to 
take out when he threw off the cloaths. Returning directly to the 
college, he told Mr. Carstares, he had come to restore him a note, 
which he had neglected to take out of the pocket of the suit of 
cloaths he had sent him. By no means, says he, Caddel, it cannot 
belong to me ; for when you got the coat you acquired a right to 
every thing in it." 

Carstares had borne the brunt of persecution in the days 
of the enforced Episcopacy. He had guided the Church 
through the unquiet waters of the Revolution settlement, 
and had ruled her policy during the negotiations of the 
Union. Another chapter is still needed to record his man- 
agement during the troublous times which ensued, when 
concessions to Episcopacy, and restoration of patronage, 
threatened to realise the worst fears of those Presbyterians 
who had denounced, and withstood, the incorporation of 
the kingdoms. 



XVIII.] 315 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

English Liturgy— Greenshields — Apprehensions of the Church Assembly 
of 1711 — Deputation to London — Toleration and Patronage — Oath of 
Abjuration. 

Hitherto the liturgical element had entered but slightly 
into the constitution and history of Episcopacy in Scotland. 
In the days of King James's " Tulchans," the Presbyterians 
habitually used a liturgical worship ; and the bishops, whom 
he created, had neither the power nor the wish to alter it. 
Under Charles I. a disastrous effort had been made to intro- 
duce a new service-book ; but it had never been repeated. 

During the persecuting days of Charles II. and James VII., 
the Episcopal worship was of the same extempore kind as 
the Presbyterian had by that time come to be ; and it was 
not the ritual, but the prelacy, of the bishops and their 
clergy, that was the stone of stumbling and rock of offence 
to those who refused to conform to the enforced Establish- 
ment. Now, however, after the turmoil of the Kevolution 
was stilled and the excitements of the Union were allayed, 
and when the cultivated and refined classes in Scotland were 
rendered more amenable to English influences than hitherto, 
by^ the transference of the centre of their political and social 
life from Edinburgh to London, the liturgical element began 
to make its presence felt in the North. The old Presbyterian 
propriety had given way to usages in divine service which 
were slovenly and unattractive ; and the more the comeliness 
and solemnity of the English ritual were known, the more 
were educated worshippers repelled by the ill-ordered manner 
of worship in Scotland. There had been a great influx of 
English servants of the Government after the Union, who 
lamented bitterly the loss of their familiar prayers and 



316 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

services ; and not a few Scotsmen, during their sojourns in 
the. South, learned to contrast, unfavourably, the public 
worship of their national Church with that of the Church 
of England .* 

The English liturgy had scarcely, if ever, been heard in 
Scotland until after the Eevolution, and then but on very 
rare occasions, until after the Union.t In the year 1709 
the first determined attempt was made to use it regularly 
and openly, and to establish the right of Episcopalians to 
celebrate public worship according to the Anglican use. 
The General Assembly had foreseen the danger, and had, 
in 1707,$ launched an Act " against innovations in public 
worship," which was intended to prevent the introduction 
of the liturgy in any of the parish churches, and to assert 
the Church's right to interfere with the worship of any con- 
gregation which worshipped without Presbyterial sanction. 
But this Act was ignored, and the whole question with which 
it professed to deal was brought to an issue, two years later, 
by James Greenshields. 

Greenshields, who had been ordained by one of the de- 
prived Scotch bishops, and who had held an Irish curacy 
for some years, came to Edinburgh in 1709, took the oaths 
to Government, and opened a place of worship, in which he 
read the prayers of the English Church. There had been 
no such deliberate invasion of the domain of Presbytery 
since the Eevolution. Even in the case of English regiments 
lying in Scotland, the Episcopal chaplain had not ventured 
to officiate publicly. Brigadier Whiteman, who commanded 
a regiment of Englishmen and Episcopalians, on being quar- 
tered in Scotland, consulted Carstares as to whether his 
chaplain might celebrate divine service as he had been accus- 
tomed to do in England, the congregation being composed 

* Even " ruling elders " habitually " haunted " the Episcopal Church in 
London. See Correspondence, vol. i. p. 138. 
f Grub, vol. iii. p. 357. 
X Act xv. of Assembly, 1707. 



XYI1L] BRIGADIER WHITEMAN. 317 

solely of the regiment. Carstares declined to advise him ; 
but proposed that he and the Brigadier should both refer 
the question to the Secretary of State, and await his decision. 
"Whiteman agreed* to this ; and the reply which he received 
from the Secretary was, that Her Majesty desired that his 
chaplain should neither preach nor celebrate the Communion 
on Scotch ground.* On this occasion Lord Sunderland wrote 
to Carstares from Windsor, 25th October 1709 : — 

" I have received the favour of yours of the 13th instant, and 
acquainted the Queen with the contents of it, who has commanded 
me to let you know how sensible she is of your care to keep all 
quiet in your parts, and how well she takes this instance of your 
zeal for her service, in relation to what was proposed of having the 
liturgy used in Brigadier Whiteman's regiment, whose conduct in 
this particular Her Majesty does very much commend, and has 
ordered me to tell him so. I am also commanded to assure you of 
Her Majesty's intentions not to suffer anything to be done that 
might give any disquiet to those of the Established religion in 
Scotland, which it is Her Majesty's fixed resolution to support and 
maintain. Whatever happens from time to time in your parts, of 
this kind, or any other which you shall think it for Her Majesty's 
service she should be informed of, I desire you will acquaint me 
with it, and I will not fail to lay it before Her Majesty, and let 
you know her pleasure ; and, in whatever regards your particular 
interest, you may depend upon the best services of him, who is 
with great truth and esteem, sir, 

" Your most humble servant, 

" Sunderland." f 

It will be seen from this incident that the Court and the 
Government were not interested in the introduction of the 
liturgy in Scotland. Nor was it in itself agreeable to 
the general body of the Scotch Episcopalians, who had 
never used it, and who disliked it — partly from national 
prejudice, partly from their disloyalty to that Crown to 
which the liturgy did ample homage.J Those clergymen, 

* ' Analecta,' vol. i. p. 214. Wodrow gives a wrong name — Weir, 
f McCormick, p. 776. 

% Defoe. Preface, p. xxvii. " They would not pray for the Queen." 
Calamy, vol. ii. p. 164. 



318 WILLIAM CARSTARJE8. [Chap. 

from England or Ireland, who came into the country, did 
not bring with them the political sentiments of* the Scotch 
Episcopalians, and indeed held themselves aloof from con- 
nection with the representatives of the expelled hierarchy, 
who were in affectionate alliance with the English Non- 
jurors.* 

The movement was thus, however, not the less, but the 
more, alarming to the Presbyterians. They saw in it but 
a new instance, in the ecclesiastical sphere, of that over- 
bearing English domination, which had, in the departments 
of their civil government, done much to intensify the 
general hatred of the Union. Even the friendly intentions 
of the Court and Cabinet were of little avail, if a Scottish 
institution was to be overthrown, or an English tax or 
law imposed.! The haughty Southern seemed to delight 
in inflaming the irritated temper of the Northern nation ; 
and things were so ordered, says a shrewd spectator, " as if 
the design had been to contrive methods to exasperate the 
spirits of the people there.":*: Even those who had no great 
love for Presbytery thought they detected, in the attempt 
to set up the Anglican Church service, an invasion of national 
rights and a violation of the Union. The Established clergy 
naturally were alarmed and incensed. Greenshields, who 
had placed himself at the head of the movement, was within 
the bounds of the Edinburgh Presbytery ; and he was sum- 
moned to its bar, and prohibited from exercising his clerical 
functions. On his disregarding the prohibition, the Pres- 
bytery invoked the aid of " Caesar " in the person of the 
magistrates, who committed the contumacious liturgist to 
prison. On appeal to the Court of Session the sentence of 

* Grub, vol. iii. p. 357. 

f The abolition of the Scots Privy Council was carried against the 
Government in the House of Commons. — Burton, vol. ii. p. 24. 

" The Queen," writes Lord Glasgow to Carstares, " is much afraid that 
the House of Commons proceedings against a Council in Scotland may 
much alarm our Church. She is heartily against the measure, and will do 
her utmost in the matter." — Murray Dunlop MSS. 

% Burnet, vol. v. p. 333. 



XVIII.] GREENSHIELDS. 319 

the magistrates was twice confirmed ; and thus, " so far as 
the institutions of Scotland were concerned, it was clear 
that Episcopal clergymen were not to be permitted to offi- 
ciate according to the English form in Scotland." * Green- 
shields and his advisers, however, had a remedy in view on 
which the Church party had not reckoned. For the first 
time in the legal annals of Scotland an appeal was carried 
to the British House of Lords ; and the Presbyterians found, 
with dismay, that a cause affecting the interests and juris- 
diction of their Church was to be decided in a court of 
which the English bishops were members.f 

Meanwhile, public feeling in the South was exasperated 
by reports of the renewed stringency with which Episco- 
palians were treated in Scotland. Old Sir James Steuart was 
again appointed Lord Advocate ; % and the Jacobite party 
alleged he was restored at the instance of Carstares, because 
Sir David Dalrymple was found too lenient in his dealings 
with the disaffected Scotch Episcopalians and the innovating 
English. § There is no evidence of Carstares having had any- 
thing to do with his old friend's restoration to office; and 
the strict measures which were used to enforce conformity 
were opposed to his general policy. He knew too well 
how impossible it would be — especially amid the High 
Church fervour for Sacheverell — to persuade the House of 
Lords, or any English court, that the celebration of divine 
service in the English form must be pronounced absolutely 
illeo-al in Scotland— to regard with favour the extreme 
position taken up by the Presbytery and the courts of law 
in Edinburgh. He knew how hotly the general opinion 

* Burton, from 1688, vol. ii. p. 36. 

f On the question of Scotch appeal to the House of Lords, which 
legislation has brought into recent discussion, see Burton, from 1688, 
vol. ii. p. 36, &c. 

% Mr. Hill Burton makes one of his rare minor errors in stating (vol. ii. 
p. 40, note) that Sir David Dalrymple remained Lord Advocate in 1711. 
Sir James was re-appointed in that year (see Coltness Collections, p. 367), 
and retained his post, notwithstanding the Tory ascendency in the 
Ministry, till his death, in 1713. 

§ Lockhart Papers, p. 551. 



320 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

of England would resent the prosecution of a clergyman 
(no matter what his special circumstances might be) for 
reading the prayers of the Church, and how loudly the 
squires and parsons would echo the cry which Swift had 
raised in his * Examiner :' " If these be the principles of the 
Sigh Kirh, God preserve at least the Southern parts from 
their tyranny." * 

" Mr. Greenshield's affair," he writes to Principal Stirling, 
on the 9th of March 1710, while the case was still pending, 
"hath given us a great blow, and doth very much grieve 
me. I pray God may direct us how to manage ourselves, in 
such a juncture. We stand in need of wisdom and conduct, 
that integrity and truth may preserve us." t 

In the Assembly of 1710, the address to the Queen was 
drafted by Carstares, and being very much in the usual 
form, except in a few references to Protestants abroad, and 
to the principles of the happy Revolution (" cast in by 
Mr. Carstares," says Wodrow, "in opposition to the Tories 
in England"), it was objected to by some members, who 
appeared to desire the addition of other paragraphs, with 
more direct relation to the existing grievances and diffi- 
culties of the Church.J Carstares's draft was, however, 
adopted, and we trace his influence in the Assembly's 
avoidance of the vexed question of the English liturgy. It 
was, however, with great difficulty, and at the hazard of all 
his personal popularity, that he succeeded in maintaining the 
ascendency of the moderate policy. " He was at this time," 
says McCormick, "although the most respectable clergy- 
man in the Church, perhaps the most unpopular. This 
made him often complain, both in private and in public, that 
his situation was peculiarly hard, to be forced, first to draw 
upon himself the censure of his brethren, by encountering 
their prejudices and putting a stop to their violent pro- 
ceedings, and then to justify those very measures to 

* < Examiner ' (Swift's Works), No. 30. 

t Glasgow MSS., < Lett. Scot.' 

% Acts of Assembly. Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 137, 152. 



XVIII] GREENSHIELDS* CASE. 321 

administration, which he had disapproves and in vain 
attempted to frustrate. 

" He felt this in a variety of instances during the course 
of those prosecutions which were carried on by his more 
rigid brethren in different corners of Scotland against some 
of the Episcopal clergy, who, by virtue of the powers 
entrusted with presbyteries, were, upon the most frivolous 
pretexts, turned out of their livings. But he felt it most 
of all in the case of Greenshields at Edinburgh. Having 
in vain attempted to dissuade his brethren and the civil 
magistrates from so unpolitic a step as that of stating them- 
selves in downright opposition to the Church of England at 
the bar of the House of Peers, he ventured to prognosticate 
that their severity in that instance would only open a door 
for other encroachments, and give an advantage to their 
enemies in carrying on their projects for the subversion 
both of Church and State." * 

'•' I am perfectly tired," he writes, on the 12th of May, 
to his nephew Alexander, " by continual toil, since the 

Assembly did meet, which ended calmly this evening 

I have some thoughts of going to St. Andrews next week, 
but my motions are very uncertain." 

Sacheverell's impeachment pushed the lesser affair of 
Greenshields into the background ; but when Sacheverell's 
case was settled, and when the Whigs, driven from office, 
had given place to Harley and the Tories, the appeal came 
before the House of Lords. Harley and St. John both 
urged its withdrawal, as a decision was certain to give 
mortal offence either to the Church of Scotland, or to that 
of England ; but Lockhart and the majority of the Scotch 
members of Parliament, who were Tories, insisted on its 
being heard.f The sentence of the House of Lords was pro- 
nounced in March 1711, and it was, that the judgment of the 
Court of Session should be reversed, and the magistrates of 

* McCovmick, p. 79. f Lockhart, 347-48. 

V 



322 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Edinburgh — who had imprisoned Greenshields — condemned 
in costs* 

This decision marked the first phase of a crisis in the 
history of the Church of Scotland. A full toleration of 
Episcopacy — the recognition of the Church of England in 
Scotland, and the restoration of patronage, were foreseen as 
likely to follow this defeat. 

When the Assembly met in May, the unpopularity which 
Carstares had earned was all but forgotten in the desire 
to have the Church officially represented, at so threatening a 
juncture, by his long-tried wisdom and statesmanship. He 
was for the third time elected Moderator by an overwhelm- 
ing majority.! In his speeches at the opening and at the 
close of the Assembly, one can detect the apprehension of 
coming dangers. 

There were not a few, he said, in his inaugural address 
to the Commissioner, who were watching for the Church's 
halting, and he knew well that methods had been used by 
those that were openly disaffected to the constitution of the 
Church to make Churchmen uneasy, and to tempt them to 
murmur. Surmises had been raised that patronage was to be 
restored, though it was notorious what an important security 
to the Church its abolition had been and how highly the 
law which abolished it was valued. The Queen, he was 
aware, had many misrepresentations laid before her ; but he 
could assure his grace the Commissioner, that the often- 
maligned Presbyterians were yet Her Majesty's most trusty 
subjects. He never wished to see the loyalty of her people 
brought to the test ; but should a trial ever come, the 
world would see the difference between those that acted from 
a firm and solid principle founded upon conscience and those 
who, " upon a turn," professed loyalty to the Crown only to 
serve their own purposes. He referred to the loud outcry 

* Burton, from 1688, vol. ii. p. 36 ; Grub, vol. iii. p. 362 ; Cunningham, 
vol. ii. p. 348. 

t " I think there were not ten votes squandered from him." Corre- 
spondence, vol. i. p. 213. 



XVIII.] ASSEMBLY OF 1711. 323 

that had been raised about the "persecution" of the Episco- 
palians, — but, said he, " quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione que- 
rentes?" There was so little ground for the outcry, and he 
would be so much tempted to recriminate if he entered on 
the subject, that he would forbear. As regarded the restora- 
tion of patronage, or any measure touching the rights of the 
Church, he would not allow himself to forebode, but he 
trusted in "the Queen's wisdom and equity," in the public 
faith, and " the justice of a British Parliament." * " He 
was near a quarter of an hour," says Wodrow, and adds 
admiringly, " I can scarce think that the freedom he used 
could either come so handsomely from, or been so well taken 
off the hand of any member of the house as him." 

It was significant of the Assembly's dread of the policy of 
that " memorable Tory Ministry of Queen Anne's latter days, 
which would, it was believed, have restored the British Crown 
to the Stuart dynasty had they not been zealously watched 
from without and divided among themselves," t that, for the 
first time, the reply to the Koyal letter expressed the 
Church's steadfast hope in the succession of the " illustrious 
family at Hanover ;" and an Act was passed " recommend- 
ing," along with the prayers for the Queen, prayers for the 
Princess Sophia and the Protestant house.J "I was confi- 
dent," wrote Lord Seafield to Carstares, " that the Assembly, 
being under your direction, would not fail in their duty to 
the Queen, and, at the same time, would do something that 
would be of consequence for our religion, and which has 
accordingly happened ; for what the Assembly has done in 
favour of the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover, 
is thought by all that are well affected to the Constitution 
to be of the greatest consequence in the present juncture, 
and it pleases me that the honour of doing this is given 
to yourself." § 

At the close of the Assembly, again speaking at length in 

* MS. Eecords (Glasgow). Correspondence, vol. i. p. 214. 
f Hill Burton, from 1688, vol. ii. p. 38. 
X Acts of Assembly, 1711. § McCormick, p. 792. 

Y 2 



324 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

a like strain to that employed at the beginning, and 
obviously intending his words to be understood as a deliberate 
manifesto addressed by the Church to the Government and 
the public, he says, as if to give an additional emphasis to 
them, " I have here my papers, which I shall freely consult, 
as I find it necessary that whatever shall be spoken by me 
shall be under your censure, to which I shall cheerfully 
submit myself." 

It is very remarkable that Carstares should make no 
reference to an Act of this Assembly, which has bequeathed 
to the present day a serious practical embarrassment. That 
Act, the tenth, assuming the Assembly's right to alter a 
formula fixed by Parliament, enacted that all probationers 
entering the Church, and all ministers before their ordina- 
tion, should subscribe a formula much more minute and 
stringent than that which had received Parliamentary sanc- 
tion.* It is obvious, on the most cursory review of the 
position, that the Assembly passed the Act as a precautionary 
measure, and with the intention of interposing a barrier to 
the dreaded admission to parishes (under Jacobite patrons) 
of Episcopalian, and disaffected, presentees. Carstares was 
too much of a Broad Churchman to love the stringency of 
the formula for its own sake ; but he regarded it as a neces- 
sary safeguard against a grave political and ecclesiastical 
evil. He might, however, have shrunk from adopting it, 
even in view of this necessity, could he have foreseen that, 
ages after every political cause for its existence had passed 
away, its precarious legality would be still asserted, and the 

* In the Act " for settling the quiet and peace of the Church " — 1st 
William and Mary (1693), cap. 22. "That no person be admitted a 
minister or preacher within the hounds of this Church unless that he ... . 
subscribes the Confession of Faith, declaring the same to be the confession 
of his faith, and that he owns the doctrine therein contained to be the true 
doctrine, which he will constantly adhere to'; as likewise that he owns and 
acknowledges Presbyterian Church government .... to be the only govern- 
ment of this Church, and that he will submit thereto and concur there- 
with, and never endeavour, directly or indirectly, the prejudice or subversion 
thereof." 



XVIII.] DEPUTATIONS TO LONDON. 325 

burden of its subscription laid on the conscience of every 
entrant to the ministry, not by the law of the land, but by 
the injunction of the Church alone. He was not likely 
to anticipate that the protection against the intrusion of 
Episcopalians and Jacobites would, in course of time, trans- 
form itself into a check upon liberty of thought and of 
conscience, and, notwithstanding, still be maintained as an 
indispensable part of the constitution of the Church. 

The Church had begun to feel the practical inconvenience 
and disadvantage of having the seat of the civil government 
fixed in a distant city, and surrounded by influences that 
were alien and prelatic. The Scottish Privy Council, which 
had been the instrument of so many crimes against liberty 
and religion, but which, since the Revolution, had been the 
friendly coadjutor of the Church, existed no longer. The 
Privy Council in London was too remote and too exalted 
a body to be readily accessible to the applications of the 
Church courts, and was coldly neglectful of requests that 
it should confirm, with the authority of the State, the fasts 
and other appointments of the Church. 

Remonstrances and explanations, made in letters, or 
addresses, or by lukewarm political adherents in London, 
had little effect ; and the Church had to resort to the plan of 
sending to the metropolis deputations of her leading minis- 
ters, in order to force her representations upon the attention 
of the Administration and the Legislature. Among the 
minor grievances troubling the minds of Churchmen at this 
time were, notably, the difficulties encountered in appointing 
those fasts, through which the Church delighted to " testify " 
against the errors of the day. There was also the growing 
audacity of outrage in the North, where the Episcopalians, 
elated by the Greenshields' decision (which, apart from all 
liturgical questions, was welcome to them as a blow 
inflicted on the Church), were resisting, with triumphant 
insolence and violence,* the settlement of Presbyterian 

* ' Analecta/ vol. i. p. 329. Correspondence, vol. i. p. 195, et seq. 
Lockhart, p, 548, et seq. McCormick, p. 776, et seq. 



326 WILLIAM CAB STARES. [Chap. 

incumbents. But looming most darkly in the future, and 
obscuring the whole horizon, rose the twin shadows of 
toleration and of patronage. 

" Nox atra polum bigis subvecta tenebat." 

The Church must have a direct and trustworthy repre- 
sentative at headquarters; and a deputation, conducted by 
Carstares, was authorized to proceed to London. 

Carstares spent most of the summer of this year in England, 
partly at Bath and partly in the metropolis ; and there, in 
November, he was joined by his fellow-deputies — Blackwell, 
one of the professors at Aberdeen, and Baillie, minister of 
Inverness. They lost no time in addressing themselves to 
•Lord Oxford, the Prime Minister, by whom they were 
received in a very friendly way, and who was always parti- 
cularly kind to Carstares. 

On sundry minor points, such as the appointment of a 
fast, " his lordship granted all that could be expected ;" * 
but over the greater questions of toleration and of patronage, 
the deputies found they could exercise but little control, 
The Lord Treasurer was always cordial and polite, ready to 
promise, but unable or unwilling to fulfil. A Bill to 
" prevent the disturbing those of the Episcopal Communion, 
in that part of Great Britain called Scotland," was brought 
into the House of Commons. " Since Monday last," writes 
the anxious Blackwell, on the 24th of January 1712, " Mr. 
Carstares and I have been running amongst the members in 
all parts of the city, endeavouring to show the unaccount- 
ableness of the same ; and this day we have been with the 
Lord Treasurer, who hath promised that some of the most 
effectual means shall be used towards accomplishing our 
desire." f 

The House of Commons, however, refused even to receive 
a petition against the Bill presented by Carstares. He then 

* Black well's Letters. ' Miscellany of Spalding Club,' vol. i. p. 198. 
f Ibid. p. 207. 



XVIII.] THE TOLERATION. 327 

approached Her Majesty, and laid before her a humble 
representation from the Church — "obtesting Her Majesty, 
by the same mercy of God that restored that Church and 
raised Her' Majesty to the throne, to interpose for the relief 
of that Church, and the maintenance of the present estab- 
lishment against such a manifest and ruining encroachment." 
Carstares added a few words of his own, in support of the 
representation, and received " a very gracious answer from 
Her Majesty ;" * but this appeal to the Throne had no effect 
in arresting the progress of the Bill. 

This letter from the deputies to a correspondent in 
Edinburgh records their efforts and disappointments : — 

" London, Jan. 29, 1712. 

" Kev. and dear Brother, — The Bill for a Toleration, not only 
for Scots Episcopal ministers as such, but also for the use of the 
English liturgy in Scotland, hath now been twice read in the 
House of Commons ; and this day the said House went into a com- 
mittee and hath gone through much of the half of the Bill, and hath 
resolved to proceed into the remaining part upon Saturday next. By 
the next post you may come to receive a double of the Bill, as here 
you have enclosed a true copy of the petition which we were advised 
by counsel to give in to the House of Commons ; which accordingly 
we did this day — but upon the first motion of it, it was rejected 
and not allowed a reading. We are heartily sorry for the Bill, and 
so much the more that we conceive not only the discipline of our 
Church is much stricken at by it, but also that it is like to open a 
door to great corruption both in doctrine and worship. What 
entertainment this Bill may get from the House of Lords is more 
than we know, neither are we to enlarge upon the vexation of 
spirit and fatiguing measures we have been obliged unto in this 
affair. Only we are at a great loss in a matter of such conse- 
quence to know proper measures, it being a most intricate and per- 
plexing juncture as possibly men could be trysted with. In the 
meantime we are resolved to do what we can so far as there shall 
be any access towards the preventing of such a heavy stroke, 
though withal we have too much ground to fear but little success. 

* ' Annals of Queen Anne,' vol. x. p. 330. 



328 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Hoping you'll pardon this short note, we rest, reverend and dear 
brother, 

" Your most affectionate brethren and servants, 

u W. Car stakes, 
" Tho. Blackwell, 
" K. Baillie. 
" To the Very Rev. Mr. William Mitchell, 

Minister of the Gospel at Edinburgh." * 

The personal goodwill and moderation of Lord Oxford 
could not withstand the tide of Toryism in England and 
Jacobitism in Scotland, which was setting strongly against 
the Church. The toleration of Episcopalians and the 
restoration of patronage were both advocated by the party 
to which Oxford owed his power ; and advocated for the 
sole purpose of regaining their lost ascendency to the 
Episcopalians and Jacobites of Scotland.f A strong and 
united Presbyterian Church was the foe which they most 
dreaded ; and their efforts were therefore bent to such 
measures as, they hoped, would weaken it and split it into 
factions. The knowledge of these designs, and of their real 
bearing, lay at the root of the strenuous opposition offered by 
Carstares and his friends to the Toleration and Patronage 
Acts. The Toleration, which came first in order, was in 
itself an equitable redress of an undoubted grievance ; but as 
the true Liberals of 1687 had resisted King James's tolera- 
tion then, because they knew that it was advanced for the 
behoof of the enemies of rational liberty and religion, so now, 
the true Liberals in the Scottish Church withstood a kindred 
measure proposed with a kindred aim. The religious and 
political interests were again inextricably interwoven; and 
behind the shield of toleration of Episcopal worship, the 
bigotry and monarchical fanaticism of the Jacobites strove 
to inflict a fatal wound on the rights secured to Scotland by 
the Eevolution. 

Carstares saw this plainly, and did his best to arrest the 

* In the possession of David Laing, Esq. 

t Lockhart, pp. 378 and 418. Burnet, vol. vi. p. 106. 



XVIII.] "SCOTTISH TOLERATION ARGUED." 329 

treacherous Act. The discussions which it occasioned raised 
a cloud of anonymous pamphlets, in more than one of which 
his hand is traceable. In one especially, * The Scottish 
Toleration Argued,' * he condenses all the arguments against 
the Bill which could be openly alleged ; but the real 
argument was one which it was difficult to maintain in 
public; though it was obviously not less difficult for a 
liberal politician and tolerant Churchman to make much of 
those that were overtly avowed. 

He rehearses all the laws relating to the establishment of 
the Scottish Church, from the Eeformation onwards ; which 
it is hard to imagine he did not see to be practically irre- 
levant, as the establishment of one Church could not be fairly 
held, unless under a tyranny like that of the Stuarts, to ex- 
clude the right of celebrating other worship than that of the 
Establishment. He ought also to have understood that the 
right of " visitation " and " expurgation," which he claims to 
have been conferred on the Church by the 5th Act of the 
2nd Session of William and Mary, could not be deemed a 
perpetual right, but was intended to be exercised only until 
the Church should be properly reconstructed ; nor should 
he have overlooked the difference between bringing Epi- 
scopacy into the Church, and simply tolerating the public 
worship of Episcopalians, who stood aloof from the Church, 
and did not seek to be reconciled to its communion. One of 
his chief arguments is that this toleration, by exempting 
Episcopalians from the censures of the Church, will undo the 
bonds of discipline. " How," he asks, " can any subject of 
this country be exempted from the censures of the Church ? 
Those people will be under no Church government, and so 
become freebooters both in religion and morals." This plea 
was one which seemed to Carstares very potent. He was 
thoroughly " Erastian " (as that phrase is understood in 
Scotland), and could not recognise any authority to censure 
or govern as belonging to the Church, except in so far as 
agreed to and ratified by the State. 

* Advocates' Library : Pamphlets, vol. 600. 



330 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

He adopted the same argument at a conference at which 
he and the other deputies, along with Lord Hay, met some 
of the Scotch Tory members of Parliament, and an account 
of which is preserved by Lockhart * 

" Mr. Carstares," says Lockhart, who, it must be remem- 
bered, was an unscrupulous Jacobite, " had too much sense 
to offer any reasons against the Bill in general in the present 
situation of affairs ; so far otherwise he appeared very humble, 
pretending that the brethren were not for persecution ; and 
as the Dissenters were tolerated in England, there was much 
to say why the like favour should be showed to the Church 
party in Scotland ; but he thought the clause which stood 
part of the Bill with respect to the power of ecclesiastical 
judicatories, would be prejudicial to the interests of religion, 
virtue, and morality — seeing all who were not of the Presby- 
terian communion were by it exempt from being subject to 
their judicatories ; and as there could be no Church judica- 
tories but those of the Church established by law, this clause 
would afford an occasion to evade all Church censures, when 
even inflicted on the most scandalous persons ; and he 
humbly submitted if it was not to be believed that the Epi- 
scopal ministers themselves would rather desire that the power 
of Church censures stood vested in the Presbyterian clergy, 
than that vice and immorality should pass altogether un- 
punished. Some of the gentlemen there present seemed 
averse to make any alterations to please the brethren, and on 
that account would not yield a bit to Mr. Carstares. I hap- 
pened to be of another opinion, and told them I believed 
Mr. Carstares had another reason than he expressed against 
this clause, viz. that by it all the scandalous fellows in the 
country, when they committed any crime which exposed 
them to the Church judicatories, would declare themselves 
Episcopalians, and thereby escape being punished ; but at 
the same time prove a great reflection on that party and set 
of men who screened such offenders and coveted to add them 
to the number of their communion ; that this I took to be 

* Lockhart, p. 379. 



XVIII.] LOCKHARTS NARRATIVE. 331 

Mr. Carstares's secret reason against the clause, though for 
certain reasons he did not think fit to own it ; and, for my 
own part, I agreed heartily with him in it. He smiled, and 
said he would leave me to make what judgment I pleased 
of his secret reasons, provided he could thereby make a 
convert of me against the clause. After some further arguing 
on this subject, it was agreed to drop this clause, and another 
should be inserted in its room, viz. that the civil magistrates 
should not interpose to compel any man, by their authority, 
to submit to the sentences of the Church judicatories ; and it 
was thought that this clause would leave the Presbyterians 
sufficient power over those of their own communion, seeing 
they thought themselves in conscience bound to give 
obedience to their sentences, and it was absolutely necessary 
with respect to other people, because the Presbyterian 
ministers often harassed and plagued many innocent people 
on groundless pretences and false accusations, whilst the real 
reason was that they were not good Presbyterians ; neither 
could this clause prove any encouragement to immorality, 
seeing the Presbyterians might pronounce what sentences 
they pleased, and the civil punishments might still be in- 
flicted by the civil magistrate against all offenders of what- 
ever persuasion, and nothing was to hinder the pastors of 
Episcopal congregations from publicly rebuking such as were 
guilty of scandal. Mr. Carstares was obliged to accept of this 
change, as the best that he could make of it ; and, in consi- 
deration thereof, did promise that his own, and such of his 
party's friends that he had interest w T ith, should not propose 
the abjuration or any other amendment to the Bill, reserving 
nevertheless full liberty to oppose the Bill in gross by all the 
methods they thought proper." 

Lockhart complains, subsequently, that the promise re- 
garding the abjuration oath was evaded by Carstares, who, 
he alleges, procured the insertion of an oath virtually the 
same as the abjuration, when the Bill came to the House 
of Lords. The fact was, however, that such a promise, if 
ever regularly made, was practically untenable. The Whig 



332 WILLIAM CAJRSTABLS. [Chap. 

party, unable — and probably unwilling — to defeat the 
Toleration, were yet determined that it should not be 
made the shelter of sedition. They therefore secured the 
addition to the Bill of the abjuration oath, as well as of 
an injunction that prayers should be regularly offered for 
the Queen and " the most excellent Princess Sophia." 
The Tories, on their part, no less determined to irritate 
the Presbyterians, contrived that the oath and the injunc- 
tion should be framed in a shape most offensive to Presby- 
terian prejudices and principles. Obliterating the distinction 
between a Church established and a Church tolerated,* they 
prescribed the oath in the same haughty terms to the Estab- 
lished clergy and to the deposed and vagrant Episcopalians, 
and made the formula, thus offensively prescribed, to embody 
the condition (necessarily obnoxious to the Scots clergy) that 
the successor to the throne must be a member of the Anglican 
Church.f The imposition of this new test exasperated the 
Presbyterians more even than the clauses of the Toleration. 
These, no doubt, enjoined all magistrates and judges to 
protect the Episcopal meeting-houses with all the sanctions 
of the law, and virtually gave an official recognition to Epi- 
scopal orders, whether conferred by an Anglican prelate, or 
by an " exanctorate " member of the hated Scottish hierarchy ; 
but even this was an offence less personally insulting and 
humiliating than the obligation to take an oath, which had 
been originally devised by the English Parliament before the 
Union, and to the terms of which they had the strongest 

* " To be tolerated is no more than to receive the compassion of the law, 
without the least share of power, encouragement, or approbation. To be 
established is to receive the approbation, judgment, and the whole will of 
the law ; and a Church established is actually assumed into a share of the 
constitution of the Government, with such a share of its power as is proper 
to administer its own discipline." — Fletcher (of Saltoun) ' On the Union 
of States.' Dalrymple, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 65. 

f " The oaths were thrown in by the Whigs to bar the Toleration to the 
Episcopals ; the October Club, they to put the thorn in the foot of the 
Presbyterian ministers, did throw out the amendment in the oath made in 
our favours ; and both parties let it pass on different designs." — ' Analecta,' 
vol. ii. p. 194. 



XV1IL] ABJURATION OATH. 333 

political and religious objections.* A protest was drawn up, 
on the especial ground that to force such a test upon the 
clergy now in the Church, and to lay it down as a condition 
of entrance in all time coming, was an infringement of the 
Treaty of Union, which protected every Scottish subject 
from any oath or test inconsistent with the Presbyterian 
Church Establishment. " This plea," says Mr. Hill Burton, t 
who lucidly exhibits these somewhat complicated affairs in 
their progress and in their various relations, " was likely to 
go much farther in England than any general antipathy to 
oaths, which might be sneered at as fanaticism." 

" When required to state their case, the clergy made it out 
thus : — The abjuration oath bound the juror to support the 
Protestant heirs to the Crown. But the line of heirs was 
referred to as indicated by the English Act of Settlement ; 
and when that Act was examined, it was found that one of 
the conditions of the succession, as there laid down, was that 
the monarch be a member of the Church of England. An 
oath making this the qualification for the throne was main- 
tained, and with justice, to be such a test (inconsistent with 
the Presbyterian Church Establishment) as the subjects of 
Scotland were protected from by the conditions of the Union. 
This incident in the form of the oath, probably overlooked 
by the framers of the Act, had much influence in strength- 
eoing the Nonjuring party in Scotland, who gave it the 
name of the 'logical lie.' Carstares, to whose acuteness 
the discovery of the anomaly may be attributed, made an 
attempt, which a person of more violent opinions would not 
have made, by a little diplomatic movement to extract from 
the oath the offensive connection with the English Church, 
without injuring its efficacy. The abjuration oath was made 
to refer to the succession ' as the same is and stands settled 
by an Act,' referring to the Act of Limitation. It was pro- 
posed that this should be changed, and that the form of 
reference should be to the succession ichich is, and stands 
settled. Thus, it was said that the juror who would not 

* Burton, from 1688, vol. ii. p. 45, et seq. f Ibid- vol. ii. p. 48. 



334 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Cha.p. 

swear allegiance to the heir as settled by conditions which 
required that he must belong to the Church of England, 
would yet have no objection to swear fealty to that line of 
succession which the Act pointed out. This alteration was 
made in the Bill as it stood in the House of Lords ; but it 
appears to have been looked on as an engrosser's blunder, 
or some other result of carelessness, and the previous 
phraseology was restored, as a matter of routine, without 
any explanation." 

All these finessings ended in the imposition of the obnoxious 
oath ; and the part which Carstares took did not escape the 
blame which, in excited times, is commonly attached to a 
cautious policy ;* but the more intelligent of his countrymen 
did him the justice of acknowledging he had acted for the 
best. He had warned his constituents, when he proceeded 
to London, that he did not expect to succeed in his oppo- 
sition to the Toleration, and that while the Tory element 
was so highly in the ascendant both in the Court and the 
Government, resistance — avowedly based on the reactionary 
character of the measure — would only exasperate its pro- 
moters : t — 

" I had this day your kind letter," he writes on 16th February 
to Stirling : " I call it so, because you let me know a part of what 
is said with you of my conduct here, which is friendly ; and I am 
glad that it is acknowledged that I have done better of late than 
formerly. All I shall say, till it please God to give us a meeting, 
is, that I have neither changed my party nor my principles, but 
have endeavoured to manage myself in this perplexing juncture as 
inoffensively as I could, as I was stated ; and indeed I cannot think 
that I have great reason to be concerned at what talking may be of 
me. I hope I have been, and .shall always be, concerned for our 
contemned Church. The Toleration Bill is sent down again to the 
Commons with the abjuration tacked to it ; but as for our taking 
it, it is explained, as I hear, as we desired it ; but our Episcopalians 
are to take it as it is taken here — which some think will make the 
Bill be dropt, at which I should greatly rejoice, for it still — with 
all the amendments made to it — is, in my opinion, a breach of the 

* ' Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 104. f McCorraick, p. 80. 



XVIII.] PATRONAGE. 335 

Union, and ruins our discipline My sight is still out of 

order, but better, I bless the Lord, than it was." 

The Toleration Act received the Koyal assent on the 3rd 
of March. The first woe was past, but the second woe 
came quickly ; for the Act for the restoration of patron- 
ages was introduced to the House of Commons only ten 
days later. 

The Church had, even long before the Union, dreaded that 
those who sought to undermine her would make a joint 
attack, through Toleration and the restoration of patronage ;* 
nor did the Episcopal and Jacobite party pretend to hide 
their designs of undoing that portion of the treaty, which 
solemnly secured the perpetual establishment of the Presby- 
terian Church.t The Government, however, had been under- 
stood to lend no countenance to these designs. In May 
1711, Lord Oxford had written to Carstares, assuring him 
that " the Queen, and all who have the honour to have 
credit with Her Majesty, are not only resolved to maintain 
the Union in all its parts, both religious and civil, but there 
will be no attention given to any proposals which may justly 
alarm your friends ; and particularly as to that affair of 
patronages, it was never entertained, and was really an in- 
vention suggested by two rash persons, with a design to create 
jealousies ; but it was never in the least countenanced or 
entertained." % Yet within ten months the Toleration had 
passed, and the Patronage Act was before the House. The 
Church might well take alarm, not so much at this measure 
itself, as at the general policy of which it was an ugly indi- 
cation. The Act which it proposed to abolish was that 
which, after the Revolution, had conferred the patronage 
of a parish church on the Kirk Session and the Protestant 
heritors. For this it substituted the exercise of patronage 
by the ancient patrons. The change was not a very great 

* See sermon preached before the General Assembly of 1703 by George 
Meldrum. Adv. Libr. : Pamphlets, vol. 323. 
f Lockhart, p. 418. 
X McCormick, p. 82. Correspondence, vol. i. p. 228. 



336 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

or vital one. Patronage, exercised by two or three elders 
and heritors, was in an extremely slight degree a more 
" popular " right than patronage exercised by the Crown, 
the town council, the University, or the private patron. 
But the object of the change was wicked. It was a blow 
aimed at the Protestantism and Presbyterianism of the 
Church, in the interests of a superstitious religion and a 
tyrannical policy. It was a political injury wrought for 
political ends, and as such, Carstares recognised and with- 
stood it; as he had withstood the Toleration, and as he 
was ready to withstand every infringement, however trivial, 
of established usage and prerogative in Scotland, which 
seemed to promise a transference of the balance of power 
from the party whose civil and religious principles had won 
a dear-bought triumph at the Kevolution, to the party which 
had then sunk under obloquy and defeat. He writes, on 
the 13th of March, to his friend Stirling : — 

" I know Mr. Blackwell will acquaint you with the melancholy 
things that occur here as to our poor Church — as a Bill to be 
brought in for a Christmas vacation to civil judicatures, and a 
vacation also upon the 30th of January. Whether they will meddle 
with a religious observation of those days or not I cannot tell till 
the Bill be brought in. Another Bill also is allowed to be brought 
in for restoring patronages. These are heavy blows. I am to 
make no comment upon this procedure. I hope we shall not be 
so unwise as to gratify the expectation and desire of our enemies 
in being the beginners of disorders." * 

The Christmas holidays — the old " Yule vacance " of the 
Court of Session — must have been, in themselves, an affair 
of very small moment to a man of the world, like Carstares, 
entirely devoid of all superstitious bias, either for or against 
the Christian anniversary ; but Christmas holidays, and com- 
memorations of 30th of January and the " royal martyr," 
and introduction of English liturgy in Scotland, and patron- 
age restored to Tory and Jacobite patrons — were all counts 

* Glasgow MSS., ' Lett. Eng.' 



XVTIL] PETITION TO HOUSE 01 LORDS. 337 

in the great indictment of treachery to the Kevolution and 
its liberties, of which he held the party now in the ascendant 
to be guilty. 

The Earl of Oxford tried to make good his assurances to 
Carstares by opposing the Patronage Act ; * but, as in the 
case of the Toleration, his opposition, if sincere, was fruitless, 
and the Bill was rapidly pushed on. In neither House was 
much said or done to retard its progress, f although Burnet 
had promised Carstares — who with his colleagues waited on 
the bishop — that he should speak against it. " I resolve," 
said he, " to speak some very free things in the House on 
that subject ; and I will tell them I noticed the King of 
France to proceed just in this way in revoking the Edict 
of Nantes ; and piece by piece he wore in, and at length 
took it away and turned persecutor." \ 

The first step taken by the deputies of the Church was 
to wait upon the Queen, with whom they " used great plain- 
ness as to the affair of patronages." Her Majesty made 
the cold, but constitutional, reply that " it was a Parliament 
business. "§ This was on the 18th of March; and so quickly 
was the Bill pressed that it passed the House of Commons 
on the 7th of April. 

Carstares and his friends then approached the House of 
Lords ; but their application to be heard at the bar, by 
counsel, was, at first, defeated through their own mis- 
management. They addressed their petition to " the most 
Honourable the Peers of Great Britain," and not, as they 
ought to have addressed it, to " the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal." This mode of address was irregular and uncon- 
stitutional. The Duke of Buckingham proposed that the 
petitioners should be taken into custody, but was pacified by 
the withdrawal of the petition, and an apology for his 
countrymen's (supposed) ignorance of the forms of the 



* Lockhart, p. 385. f Burnet, vol. vi. p. 108. 

% ' Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 174. 

§ Blactwell. ' Spalding Miscell.' vol. i. p. 215. 

Z 



338 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

House, offered by Lord Loudoun.* A fresh petition, on 
being presented with the proper address " to the Lords 
Spiritual and Temporal," was duly accepted by their 
Lordships.t 

The indisposition to use the title of " Lords Spiritual " 
was, no doubt, owing to the petitioners' knowledge of the 
vehement dislike to prelacy which tilled the heart of Presby- 
terian Scotland, as well as to their reluctance to acknowledge 
the authority of English bishops in legislation affecting the 
Scottish Church. Even Carstares appears to have been un- 
willing, in his capacity of Scottish Churchman, to admit this 
prelatic jurisdiction ; and when, afterwards, Wodrow tried to 
get from him the history of the change made in the petition 
he waived the subject, and would tell him no more than that 
what was done " was not done in the name of the Church, 
and was the deed of particular persons." % The principles of 
the Church were not to be compromised by a phraseology 
adopted, for convenience sake and under pressure, by her 
temporary representatives. § 

The petition, which was understood to have been drafted 
by Carstares, ran as follows : — 

" To the Eight Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in 
Parliament assembled, the humble representation of William 
Carstares, Thomas Blackwell, and Robert Baillie, Ministers of 



* Correspondence, vol. i. p. 307. Letter and note. 

f It is odd that Blackwell says nothing of all this in any of his letters. 
See ' Spalding Miscell.' vol. i. p. 217, et seq. 

% Correspondence, vol. i. p. 307. Note. 

§ The accounts of this affair are not very distinct. Blackwell says 
nothing of it, and no letter of Carstares bears on it. Wodrow states that 
a previous petition " to the Peers in Parliament" had been received without 
demur (vol. i. p. 307); while Lockhart says, "Mr. Carstares and his 
brethren sometime earlier petitioned the Lords Spiritual and Temporal " 
against the Toleration Bill. Lockhart, p. 383. 

In the ' Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 48, Wodrow confesses that he had failed to 
get to the bottom of this business. " I have not been able to get adistiuct 
accompt of the presenting the representation anent patronages. Mr. C. and 
Mr. B. waived answering questions anent it." 



XVIII.] PETITION. 339 

the Church of Scotland, concerning the Bill for Kestoring 
Patronages, now depending before your Lordships. 

" It is with all humble duty and submission represented unto 
your Lordships that this depending .bill seems to be contrary to the 
present constitution of our church, so well secured by the late 
treaty of union and solemnly ratified by the acts of parliaments in 
both kingdoms : That this may be more clear, it is to be observed, 
that from the first reformation from popery the church of Scot- 
land hath always reckoned patronages a grievance and burden, 
as is declared by the first and second books of discipline, pub- 
lished soon after the said reformation, since which time they were 
still judged a grievance, till at length they came by law to be 
abolished. 

" These patronages having been restored with episcopacy, in the 
years 1661 and 1662, did continue to the year (1690) that episcopacy 
was abolished and presbyterian government again established ; and 
though the act of parliament 1690, resettling presbyterian church 
government, was founded upon the act of parliament 1592, which 
bears a relation unto patronages ; yet the said act of parliament 
1690 doth expressly except that part of the old act, and refer 
patronages to be thereafter considered, which accordingly was con- 
sidered in the same parliament 1690, whereby it is plain that the 
abolition of patronages was made a part of our church constitution 
enacted by the act 1690 ; and that this act 1690, with all other 
acts relative thereto, being expressly ratified and for ever confirmed 
by the act for securing the protestant religion and presbyterian 
government, and engrossed as an essential condition of the ratifi- 
cations of the treaty of union past in the parliaments of both king- 
doms ; the said act abolishing patronages must be understood to be 
a part of our presbyterian constitution, secured to us by the treaty 
of union for ever. 

" Yet it is to be particularly considered that the same parlia- 
ment 1690 was so tender of the civil rights of patrons and so 
sincerely desirous only to restore the church to its just and primi- 
tive liberty of calling ministers in a way agreeable to the word of 
God, that they only discharged the patron's power of presenting 
ministers to vacant churches ; but as to anything of their civil 
rights, did make the condition of patrons better than before, not 
only by reserving unto them the right of disposal of vacant 
stipends for pious uses within the parish, but also for giving unto 
them the heritable rights of the tythes, restricting the minister, 

Z 2 



340 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

who formerly had the said right to stipends, much below the value 
of the said tythes : Notwithstanding which advantageous concession 
to the patrons by the parliament, this bill takes back from the 
church the power of presentation of ministers, without restoring 
the tythes, which formerly belonged to her ; by which the patrons 
came to enjoy both the purchase and the price. This being the 
true account of our legal settlement as to this matter, it appears to 
be evident that the restitution of patronages, as to the point of 
presentation, can only gratify a few ; while, on the other hand, it 
must necessarily disoblige a far greater number, that are now freed 
of that imposition : And, indeed, it cannot but seem strange that 
this bill should be so much insisted upon when there are so many 
patrons, and those too of the most considerable in Scotland, that 
are against such a restitution. It is also apparent that presby- 
teries must come under many difficulties and hardships as to their 
compliance with this innovation, and that many contests, disorders, 
and differences, will probably ensue betwixt patrons, presbyteries, 
heritors, and people, besides the known abuses wherewith patron- 
ages have been attended, even in their most settled condition ; 
whereof many instances might be given ; especially, that thereby a 
foundation was laid for Simoniacal factions betwixt patrons and 
those presented by them ; and likewise ministers were imposed 
upon parishes by patrons who were utterly strangers to their 
circumstances, having neither property nor residence therein. 

" It is therefore, with all submission, expected from your Lord- 
ships' justice and mature deliberation, that a bill, as we humbly 
conceive, so nearly affecting the late treaty of union in one of its 
most fundamental and essential articles, respecting the preser- 
vation of the rights and privileges which our church at that time 
was possessed of by law ; for the security of which the parliament 
of Scotland was so much concerned as not to allow their commis- 
sioners to make it any part of their treaty, but reserved it as a 
thing unalterable by any judicature deriving its constitution from 
the said treaty, shall not be approved by your Lordships, especially, 
while the nature of the treaty itself shows it to be a reciprocal 
transaction between the two nations. 

" W. Caestaees. 

" Tho. Blackwell. 

" Ro. Baillie." 

In spite of all remonstrance the Bill was carried. It 
passed the House of Lords by a majority of fifty-one to 



XVIII.] PATRONAGE RESTORED. 341 

twenty-nine, and received the Royal assent on the 22nd of 
May. It was only by the tenacity of the Duke of Argyll, 
that a clause, enacting that the presentee to a parish must 
be a Presbyterian, was inserted in the Bill, which had left 
the House of Commons without any such proviso.* 

The Act (10 Queen Anne, c. 12) thus hurriedly passed, 
under the stress of a Tory and Jacobite reaction, is still 
upon the Statute Book, after having been the indirect cause 
of more dispeace and ill-will in the Church than even the 
Five Articles of Perth, and the pretext of more than one 
disastrous secession. 

Whether the system of patronage vested in heritors and 
elders, which it displaced, would have worked better, can 
only be conjectured. Purely popular election to the office 
of parish minister had never been known in Scotland ; and 
the system thought to come nearest to it, — election by the 
Kirk Session, subject to the approval of the congregation, 
which was enacted by the General Assembly of 1649 and 
abolished at the Restoration, had not existed long enough to 
establish itself as incontestably the best.f 

Great as has been the outcry against the Act of 
1712, it may be observed that it left untouched the 
presbytery's right to examine and reject a presentee, and 
the congregation's right to express, and give effect to, their 
wishes in the matter, by their " call," or their " objections." 
It may be questioned if the mere transference of the initial 
act of presentation, or rather of recommendation, to a 
benefice, from a small number of parochial patrons to 
one patron, would have wrought the damage in the Church 
which has been ascribed to it, had the Church courts (with 
which lay the immense power of keeping unworthy candi- 
dates out of the Church altogether, and of giving due effect 
to the reasonable objections of the people) administered the 
law and used their power with wisdom, equity, and moderation. 

* Correspondence, vol. i. p. 304. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 360. BurtoD, 
from 1688, vol. ii. p. 50, et seq. 

t See Dunlop's ' Law of Patronage, 1833,' pp. 11-15. 



342 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

There were rumours of farther assaults upon the Church — 
"the air was full of noises." "Some of the Church's 
enemies/' says McCormick, " who were then in administration, 
had proposed that her annual assemblies should be discon- 
tinued, as the source of all the opposition to the measures 
then pursued by the court. Others were of opinion that 
they ought to be permitted to meet, but should be pro- 
rogued by Her Majesty's authority so soon as they were 
constituted. And, to take away the only pretext for holding 
assemblies for the future, or their sitting for any time, a 
Bill was proposed, obliging presbyteries, under certain 
penalties, to settle upon a presentation, every man to whom 
the Church had given a licence to preach, without any 
further trial or form. 

"Mr. Carstares saw very well that, however prejudicial 
these regulations might be deemed to the Church of 
Scotland, yet, in the present temper of the Parliament, they 
would meet with little opposition, if proposed or supported 
by the court. He was willing therefore to compound 
matters with the Administration; and upon condition that 
he was authorized to assure his brethren that no attempts 
would be made to introduce any alterations in the govern- 
ment or discipline of the Church, he undertook to use all 
his influence in order to allay those ferments which the late 
proceedings in Parliament had occasioned. Accordingly, 
upon his return to Scotland we find him exerting his utmost 
endeavours in calming the spirits of such of the clergy 
as, from a misguided zeal, were disposed to inflame the minds 
of the people and disturb the peace of the country." 

Carstares left London on the 17th of April, and travelled 
down to Edinburgh, where he had to open the General 
Assembly, which was about to meet. " Mr. Baillie went off 
yesterday and Mr. Carstares to-day," writes Blackwell, 
pensively, on the 17th, " though I daresay none of them 
loves home better than myself. .... I must say that there 
hath been much of providence in Mr. Carstares and Mr. 
Baillie being here, who have truly acted a most conscientious 



XVIII.] THE DEPUTIES RETURN. 343 

and active part Our joints have been almost pulled 

sundry with driving in hackney coaches through all corners 
amongst our great men for some weeks ; to be free of 
which, at other times I have often walked till I was scarce 
able to step farther, so that they have allowed no English 
beef to grow upon my bones." * 

The deputies might well be tired of their laborious 
mission and its many disappointments. Their solace was ta 
know that they had been faithful to their trust and, though 
defeated, had fought a good fight and done their best. 
If they, with the veteran Carstares at their head, had not 
succeeded, success was hopeless. 

" Si Pergama dextra 
Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent." 

* < Spalding Miscell.' vol. i. p. 220. 



344 WILLIAM CABS TABES. [Chap. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Assembly of 1712 — 'Oath of Abjuration — Assembly of 1713 — Private 
History — Accession of House of Hanover — Deputation to Loudon — 
Assembly of 1715 — Last Days — Death. 

On Carstares, as Moderator of the last General Assembly, 
devolved the duty of opening the Assembly of 1712. He 
too, " consulque non unius anni" — was expected as usual to 
regulate the proceedings of his brethren, and " to give all 
the light in matters which might otherwise prove very 
intricate." * His sermon in St. Giles', before the Lord High 
Commissioner and the assembled clergy, on the 1st of May, 
was on the text (Proverbs xxiii. 23), — " Buy the truth, 
and sell it not," and struck a keynote of calmness and 
moderation, by touching but lightly on the recent political 
transactions.! 

The Government had looked forward with some nervous- 
ness to this meeting. They knew that the forbearance of 
the Scotch clergy had been severely tried. "I hope in 
God," wrote Lord Oxford to Carstares, on the 4th of May, 
" that the Assembly will end, so as not to give any occasion 
of reproach to those who watch for their halting. Lord 
Dartmouth sends to his grace, the Lord Commissioner, an 
instruction in such terms as, I hope, will be very satis- 
factory." t The Queen's letter showed the same uneasiness 
and apprehension, and referred to " late occurrences," which 
might have " possessed some of you with fears and jealousies,"§ 

* Blackwell. ' Spalding Miscell.' vol. i. p. 219. 

f Correspondence, vol. i. p. 275. 

J Murray Dunlop MSS. 

§ Acts of Assembly, 1712. 



XIX.] ASSEMBLY OF 1712. 315 

but under the judicious management of Carstares, the 
dreaded occasion passed over quietly. The reply to Her 
Majesty's letter admitted that the recent occurrences had 
engendered fears and jealousies, as Her Majesty had surmised, 
but expressed the hope that the wrongs which the Church 
had suffered, might come, " in due time and manner, to be 
redressed." * 

The proceedings of the Commission of the Assembly and 
their deputies in opposing the Toleration and Patronage 
Acts were approved of in strong terms, and ordered to be 
engrossed in the minutes ; the worthy minister who preached 
before the Commissioner on the first Sunday of the Assembly, 
inveighed against the notion that liberty of conscience " could 
be a blessing to any people, or person," and enlarged " upon 
the sinfulness of the Toleration ;" \ and with these protests the 
dangerous position was passed and the risk of a wide-spread 
clerical disaffection evaded. The fact was that Carstares 
and his friends knew well that the recent Acts had been 
carried by the enemies of the Church, whose treacherous 
ends they would but serve if they allowed themselves to be 
provoked into hostility to the Crown, or disunion among 
themselves. The hope of the Presbyterians was in the 
Protestant succession. The triumph of Jacobitism and the 
reaction towards Episcopacy would not long survive the 
accession of the House of Hanover, and if the Church 
remained united and peaceable, the day of that accession was 
sure to dawn. 

A serious embarrassment remained, however, unaffected by 
the conciliatory tone of the Government and the temperate 
demeanour of the Assembly. In an enumeration of "the 
grounds and causes of the Lord's wrath with Scotland," \ in 
the unhappy year 1712, after naming many, such as "our 
deep security and stupidity under our sin and dangerous 

* Acts of Assembly, 1712. 
t Correspondence, vol. i. p. 281. 

% A manifesto issued under this title by the disorderly Hepburn's party, 
in 1712. 



346 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

horrid unthankfulness," the writer comes to his climax, 
with " the late sinful Union, the boundless Toleration, the 
restoring of Patronages, and the Oath of Abjuration." In 
every representation of Presbyterian wrongs this hated oath 
was " the head and front of the offending." It was a more 
searching and unbearable grievance than either Patronage or 
Toleration. 

The Assembly voted an address to the Queen, in which it 
was plainly hinted that Her Majesty might find that some of 
her most faithful subjects among the clergy would not take 
the Abjuration * Eoyal interposition, however, could not be 
constitutionally invoked to relieve any class of Her Majesty's 
lieges from the operation of an Act of Parliament ; and the 
only grace that was extended to the remonstrants was the 
postponement of the day appointed for taking the oath, from 
the 1st of August to the 28th of October.f 

During this interval, Carstares did his best to soothe the 
scruples of those who were inclined to refuse submission. 
He argued on this ground — that the Abjuration Oath, as 
originally framed by the English Parliament of 1701, was 
simply designed for the security of the Protestant religion in 
general, and not as a safeguard of the Church of England or 
of Episcopacy in particular ; nay, a proposal to add a clause 
to it, directly in favour of the Established Church and the 
Episcopal Communion, was negatived in the House of 
Commons of that date. % Hence it was to be inferred that 
the Legislature never intended the oath to be understood in 

* They pray that " such of us as may remain unclear as to the taking 
of the said oath, may yet be favourably regarded by your Majesty as your 
most loyal and dutiful subjects." — Acts of Assembly, 1712. 

f Not the 1st of November, as stated by Mr. Hill Burton. See Corre- 
spondence, vol. i. p. 321. 

% To the engagement, " I will to the extent of my power support, 
maintain, and defend the Constitution and Government of this realm, in 
King, Lords, and Commons," it was proposed to add " and the Church of 
England as by law established, with liberty of conscience as it is tolerated 
by law." The committee divided : for the clause as amended, 155 ; 
airainst, 173. 



XIX.] THE ABJURATION AGAIN. 347 

such a sense as to bind the jurant to affirm anything incon- 
sistent with Presbyterianism ; Presbyterians therefore might, 
with a safe conscience, and according to the mind of those 
who framed and first imposed the oath, take it, and explain 
it in a way perfectly agreeable to their own principles. 
This original scope and intention of the oath must overrule 
any subsequent intention, which a particular party might 
have in imposing it anew. Carstares received an anonymous 
letter, in which the facts about the passage of the oath 
through the House of Commons were detailed. He appears 
to have attributed great importance to this communication, 
and to have circulated copies of it among his friends.* 
Writing in reference to it, to Principal Stirling, on the 14th 
of June, he says : " I am sorry our scruples about the 
Abjuration should have made such noise, and shall be more 
so if they continue." In his efforts to remove these scruples, 
he had all the aid that the crafty sagacity of old Sir James 
Steuart could give him. " The advocate," says the admiring 
Wodrow, who was not himself " clear " (as the phrase went) 
about swearing, " seems to be preserved for such a time as 
this is." | 

At last the prayers, conferences, fasts, communings, and 
testify ings, of the brethren drew to a conclusion. The 28th 
of October, dies nefastus, came. Of the Established Clergy 
the majority took the oath. Among those who refused were 
a few of the older and more intolerant representatives of the 
rigid Covenanters, and they now became the nucleus of a 
sect of nonjurors and dissenters, whose lineal descendants 
still exist, and are known as the " Keformed Presbyterians." J 

Of the Episcopalians, those who were in English orders 
took the oaths. The Scotch Jacobite " curates " almost 
all refused, and went henceforth by the name of the 
Nonjurors. 

* Glasgow MSS. Lett. Scot.' It is alluded to more than once by 
Wodrow. 
E f Ibid. 'Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 41. 

X One of the smallest of Scotch sects, numbering forty-two congregations. 



348 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

Carstares of course complied. At the head of a large body 
of the clergy and through an enormous crowd, some of 
whom hooted and reviled the ministers as they passed, he 
made his way to the chamber where the justices were sitting.* 
There he took the oath, and then repeated a declaration 
which had been prepared with the advice of the Lord 
Advocate t and subscribed by all the clergy present, and 
which bore that they would have " carefully avoided taking 
the said oath, if they were not persuaded that the scruples 
moved by some about it, as if it were inconsistent with 
the known principles of the Church, are groundless, and that 
it cannot be extended to the hierarchy or ceremonies of the 
Church of England, or anything inconsistent with the 
doctrine, worship, discipline, or government of the Church 
established by law." Lockhart of Carnwath, who was 
present as one of the justices, objected to any declaration or 
explanation being offered. Carstares replied that he knew 
the oath was to be taken in its literal sense and without any 
explanation, but he protested, in his own name and in that 
of his brethren, that the sense of it which he had now 
expressed was the true one, and the one in which they took 
it ; and handing in a copy of the " declaration," he " took 
instruments " in the hands of a notary. J 

The general acquiescence in the oath induced the Govern- 
ment to deal leniently with those who forbore to take it ; 
and the Church did not consider itself called to interfere 

* Correspondence, vol. i. p. 822. 

f See his letters in Glasgow MSS.,' Lett. Scot.' 

$ Correspondence, vol. i. p. 321. Lockhart's account of this transaction 
is tinged with the spitefulness which disfigures much of his narrative. He 
was, as has been stated, present, and says, " After the brethren of the 
Presbytery of Edinburgh (and I was told they followed the same method 
in most other places) had sworn and signed the oath, which to them was 
administered by a full meeting of the justices of peace, they retired to a 
corner of the court, where Mr. Carstares repeated, or rather whispered over, 
the aforesaid explanation, in his own and his brethren's name ; and there- 
upon he took instruments in the hands of a public nottar, brought thither 
by him for that effect. This Jesuitical way of doing business," &c. — 
Lockhart, p. 384. 



XIX.] ASSEMBLY OF 1713. 349 

with tliem.* The more zealous, both of the Jurants and 
Nonjurants (or " Nons," as they were familiarly called), 
would have pushed the question in dispute to an open 
rupture. , The Jurants would have proceeded, in the Church 
courts, against the Nonjurants ; the Nonjurants would have 
broken off all ministerial communion with the Jurants. 
The policy of Carstares, however, who maintained that the 
taking or refusing of the oath was a matter for the civil, 
and not for the ecclesiastical, courts to deal with, prevailed. 
Nor would he admit that any divergences of opinion or 
action, occasioned by the imposition of the Abjuration, were 
sufficient warrants for divisions within the Church. The 
principles and practice, which he inculcated, received 
adequate expression and the formal sanction of the Church 
in an Act of the General Assembly of 1713. 

No Assembly ever passed an Act more wise and charitable 
than this one, " for maintaining the unity and peace of this 
Church." "The General Assembly .... most seriously 
obtest all ministers and people, in the bowels of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, charging them, as they regard His honour and 
the peace and quiet of this Church, that they abstain from 
all divisive courses upon occasion of different sentiments 
and practices about the said oath ; and that they would, not- 
withstanding thereof, live in love and Christian communion 

together And that all judge charitably one of another, 

as having acted according to the light of their conscience in 
this matter — and therefore that they carefully abstain from 
reproaching one another on account of the said different 
sentiments and practices." | 

"Both the Queen and her Ministry," says McCormick,^: 
" were astonished at the placable temper of the next 

* Not long after the Hanoverian succession the oath was altered, so as 
to be deprived of its objectionable features. The bitter feeling about it 
quickly died away ; but the schismatic body which had quitted the 
Church because of it, preserved its separate existence. To remove the 
cause of a schism seldom, if ever, removes the schism itself. 

t Act vi. : Assembly, 1713. 

% McCorinick, p. 83. 



350 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

General Assembly which sat after these Acts of Parliament 
were passed, and by a variety of letters which he [Car- 
stares] received at that time, testified their approbation of 
his prudent management, to which they ascribed it. 

" Not only so, but by a letter from the Lord High Treasurer, 
the Earl of Oxford, before the sitting down of the Assembly 
in the year 1713, Mr. Carstares is desired to name the 
Commissioner to that Assembly, and to send up a copy of 
such instructions as he judged seasonable in that juncture. 

1 Sib, — I received by the last post a letter from Lord Advocate, 
taking notice of the near approach of the day for the meeting of 
the General Assembly. I send this to you, by a flying packet, to 
desire your opinion freely (which shall not be made use of to your 
disadvantage) whom you would choose to be Her Majesty's Commis- 
sioner ; and that you would send any particulars you think fit to 
be added to the standing instructions, and what you judge proper 
to be inserted in Her Majesty's letter to that venerable Assembly. 
I hope the last Commissioner gave you satisfaction. I shall have 
occasion to write further to you in a little time, upon many par- 
ticulars relating to the repose of the Church, which I know you 
have much at heart, and therefore shall add no more at present, 
but that I am, with very great respect, 

' Your most faithful and most humble servant, 

' Oxford.' 

" Mr. Carstares, in return to this letter, recommended the 
Duke of Atholl as the most proper person for Commissioner, 
and sent up a draught of the Queen's letter, with the instruc- 
tions to be given by Her Majesty to the Commissioner. And 
by another letter, which he received from Lord Oxford, he is 
acquainted 'that the Queen — in consequence of his recom- 
mendation — had sent down the Duke of Atholl.' " 

The peaceable close of this Assembly of 1713 was the 
end of the crisis through which the Church had passed, 
and which is rendered memorable by the Toleration, the 
Patronage Act, and the Abjuration. 

Each of these had been devised by the enemies of the 
Church, and with the same malign intention of splitting 
it into factions, or driving it into an attitude of hostility to 



XIX.] STAR OF BRUNSWICK. 351 

the State. In none, however, had the design succeeded. 
The restoration of patronage was indeed fated to work much 
mischief in the future ; but its immediate results were insig- 
nificant. The Toleration was a recognition of the principles 
of religious liberty, which, though inimical to the Church 
at the time, because of its political bearings, was in itself 
just, and could not have been long delayed under any 
equitable Government.* To have been provoked by it into 
obstinate hostility would have been fatal to the stability of 
the Church. The Abjuration was an unnecessary infliction. 
An obnoxious oath, which seemed, at least, to recognise the 
supremacy of the Anglican Church, and which originally 
was the device of a foreign Parliament, came more home to 
the business and bosom of the Presbyterian minister, than 
the general toleration of a liturgical worship, or the possible 
abuses of the right of patronage. But even the Abjuration 
would have been a sorry cause of quarrel with the State, or 
of such internal discords as would have put their strongest 
weapon into the hands of those political enemies of the 
Establishment, who knew that if they could upset the 
Church of Scotland, they could, in all probability, bring in 
King James the Eighth. Through all intervening trouble, 
Carstares and his party kept their eye steadily fixed upon 
the Star of Brunswick. It was not a brilliant orb, and was 
encircled by no halo of romance ; but, above an atmosphere 
of corruption and chaotic change, it shone with a certain 
steady light of liberty and order. 

* This toleration of Queen Anne's, " protecting and allowing " those of 
the Episcopal persuasion to celebrate their worship with the use of the 
English liturgy in Scotland, has been grasped at by modern Scotch 
Episcopalians as giving a quasi legal establishment to their communion 
and recognition to its titular dignitaries. The intention of the Act, how- 
ever, is plain. It was passed for the avowed benefit of the English 
Episcopalians in Scotland, whose present representatives are those Epis- 
copal congregations, which do not own the authority of the Scotch bishops. 
The Scotch Episcopalians of 1712 welcomed the Act as a blow to the 
Established Church ; but as a body they disliked and held aloof from the 
introduction of the "liturgy and ceremonies," which the' Act was intended 
to protect, if not to encourage. No fact in their history is plainer than this. 



352 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

The Elector, waiting hopefully at Hanover for his kins- 
woman's demise, spoke of the Presbyterians of Scotland as 
his " best friends," and did not fail, on occasion, to encourage 
their great leader by the expression of his approval and 
goodwill. The Commission of the Assembly of 1713, at its 
meeting in August, had issued a " seasonable warning" 
against Popery, and had exhorted the people to combine, with 
loyalty to the reigning sovereign, a firmness to the Protestant 
succession in the illustrious House of Hanover, and " a just 
aversion to the Pretender ;" * and in due course Carstares 
received the following letter from the Elector's secretary : — 

" Hanover, le 3 Octobre 1713. 

" Monsieur, — Comme je compte trop sur nostre ancienne amitie, 
pour craindre que vous m'ayez tout a fait oublie, je me donee 
l'honneur de vous informer de l'extreme satisfaction avec laquelle 
Mad. l'Electrice et Aug. l'Electeur ont lie cet advertissement si 
chrestien et si salutaire des commissaires de l'assemblie generale 
du clerge presbyterien d'Ecosse. 

" Comme leurs Altesses sont persuadees, que vous avez puissa- 
ment contribue a une oeuvre si salutaire, elles m'ont ordonne, Mon- 
sieur, de vous en remercier de leur part, et de vous dire, que vous 
les obligerez fort, si vous voulez bien assurer les personnes que 
vous jugerez a propos de la reconnoissance qu'ont leur Altesses de 
cet que le dit advertissement contient pour elles, et pour la 
succession. A quoi elles reponderont de leur coste, en faissant 
redresser les griefs de la nation Ecossoise aussistot quelles en 
auront le pouvoir. 

" On ne doit pas croire que, par raport a ces griefs, et meme par 
raport a dissolution de l'union, les Ecossais pourroient obtenir 
d'avantage du pretendant que de leurs Altesses, dans la suc- 
cession des quelles (outre le redressement de leurs griefs) ils 
trouveront la surete de leur religion, loix, biens, et libertes. II 
nous importe fort que la nation soit bien persuadee de cette verite. 
Nous vous prions d'y vouloir travailler ; et moy je demeure tou- 
jours, avec respect, Monsieur, votre tres humble serviteur, 

"F. Kobethon."! 

During these years of ecclesiastical alarm and turmoil, we 
have but scant records of the private life of Carstares. 

* Acts of Assembly of 1714. Act ix. f McCormick, p. 87. 



XIX.] PRIVATE HISTORY. 353 

He appears to have generally gone to England in the 
summer or autumn, and we hear of him visiting at such 
times Bath and Scarborough. 

In the winter he lived, as his office required, in Edin- 
burgh; although even then, as we have seen, the affairs 
of the Church occasionally demanded a prolonged sojourn 
in London. He brought his nephew William Dunlop to 
live with him, while studying for the Church;* and along 
with Dunlop another young man, Charles Macky, resided 
in the house, and pursued the study of the law under the 
Principal's direction. In the few letters extant there is not 
much of special interest. He writes, in May 1712, to Alex- 
ander Dunlop, congratulating him on the birth of a daughter. 
" Give little Will a kiss for me," he says, after many kind 
good wishes ; ' ; he is just such a name-son to me as your 
little Bettie is a name-daughter to my wife." Writing to 
Mrs. Dunlop, in October of the same year, he says : — 

"My dearest Sister, — Do not think I either forget you or 
cease to love dearly you and yours. I assure you I do not. I 
thought we should have seen you here ere now ; pray come in 
before winter, for you shall not be sooner here than you shall have 
a hearty welcome from my dear wife as well as me. My dear love 
to my nephews Alexander and William. I forget not the grand- 
children. My wife and I, having been visited by the common dis- 
temper, are now, in the goodness of God, pretty well recovered. 

Dear sister, yours in entire affection. „ 

' J " W. Carstares. 

There was soon a break in the young family circle of 
Dunlops, at Glasgow, and he writes to his nephew and niece, 
in April 1713, condoling with them on the loss of more than 
one of their children : — 

* Sarah Carstares had three sons — the eldest was Alexander Dunlop, 
who was made Professor of Greek at Glasgow; next, John, who died 
early ; and William, who became a clergyman, and thereafter Pro- 
fessor of Divinity and Church History at Edinburgh. His life, full of 
excellent promise, was cut short at the age of twenty-eight, in October 
1720. Macky was, in 1719, appoin ted Professor of Civil History in the 
same University. 

2 A 



354 WILLIAM CABS TARES. [Chap. 

" God thinks fit in His infinite wisdom," he says, " to begin early 
with you, in teaching you resignation to His pleasure and submis- 
sion to His holy will, and to bring you to sit loose to earthly com- 
forts. I pray you seriously to consider the ground that you have 
to hope that the children, whom God hath thought fit to take from 
you, are in an inconceivably better state than possibly they could 
have been in here ; while I doubt not but you did both sincerely 
devote them to God in baptism, an ordinance to which they were 
entitled through your being believing parents ; and that it was 
your earnest prayer that they might be within the bond of the 

covenant, all the promises whereof are yea and amen in Christ 

My dear love to my sister. Tell her that next week there is a 
coach goes from hence with Mr. Finlason and others. I would be 
glad she would come hither in it, for I long to see her, as doth my 
wife too, who affectionately remembers you all." 

In a letter to Principal Stirling, of date April 22, 1713, 
we have the last regretful mention of his old friend and 
early comrade in the battle of civil and religious liberty — 
Sir James Steuart, whom he had helped long ago to write the 
' Accompt of the Grievances of Scotland,' and for whom, 
amid all divergences of opinion and policy, he had always 
maintained a constant friendship. " The honest old advo- 
cate," he says, " seems to be a-dying, and longs to be at 
home. He will make a great gap, and we shall miss him 
greatly." * 

Sir James died on the 1st of May : " a very inexpressible 
loss," says Wodrow,t who records his unwearied services to 
the Church. " In the affair of the Toleration and Patron- 
ages, and I must say generally since the Revolution, most 

of the public papers of this Church are his draught 

He was a great Christian, an able statesman, one of the 
greatest lawyers ever Scotland bred, of universal learning, 
of vast reading, great and long experience in public business. 
He was a kind and fast friend, particularly obliging, and 
very compassionate and charitable ; and in his last sickness, 
and at his death, one of the brightest instances of pure and 

* Glasgow MSS., 'Lett, Scot.' f 'Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 202. 



XIX.] PEACE OF UTRECHT. 355 

undefiled religion under affluence of riches, a fixed reputa- 
tion, and a hurry of business that I have ever been witness 
to." The General Assembly was in session at the time of 
his funeral, and " all the clergy were asked, and so great was 
the crowd, that the magistrates were at the grave, in the 
Greyfriars Churchyard, before the corpse was taken out of 
the house at the foot of the Advocates' Close." * 

In April 1713, the Peace of Utrecht, which closed the 
war of the Spanish Succession, was effected/!" The peace, 
though welcome to the mass of the English people, was 
unpopular with the Liberal party, who believed that Marl- 
borough's victories should have won terms more favourable 
to the policy of Britain. Like most of the measures of the 
Tory Ministry, it found little favour with the Presbyterians 
of Scotland.' 

In the Assembly of 1713, the Commissioner had used 
every argument to procure the insertion, in the address to 
the Queen, of a clause approving of the peace ; and had 
only desisted after he bad received a declaration signed by 
Carstares and three other leading clergymen, to the effect 
that they were convinced that any such clause would create 
much animosity in its discussion, and on a division would 
be rejected.:]: The Government, however, were determined 
to secure the form, at least, of public approval of their 
policy, in Scotland, and orders were sent down that a day 
of thanksgiving for the peace should be observed by the 
Church. The order was generally disregarded. § 

Carstares, as usual, advised a w T ise and conciliatory course. 
Although his colleague refused to take his proper share in 
the observance of the day set apart for the thanksgiving, 
Carstares, on the previous Sunday, holding the Royal procla- 
mation in his hand, but not reading it, intimated the day 

* ' Coltness Collections,' p. 3G8. 

f And gave to Britain Gibraltar, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and 
Hudson's Bay. 

% ' Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 195. 
§ Correspondence, vol. h p. 477. 

2 a 2 



356 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap 



appointed, and made a speech upon the peace. He con- 
fessed that the country might have had much better terms, 
but there were at the same time " some good things " in the 
treaty that were matter of thanksgiving. He announced 
that he would accordingly preach upon the Tuesday, which 
happened to be the ordinary clay of week-day's service — 
which he did.* 

This " mangled " way of observing the thanksgiving was 
reported at London, and caused much surprise to his political 
friends there ;f but no official notice seems to have been 
taken of it. 

Two months after this incident he went to Scarborough. 
On his return he w r as for some days seriously ill at New- 
castle; but by the time he returned to Edinburgh — in 
October — he had regained his health; "and I have at 
present," he writes to Stirling, " a better temper of body 
than I have had of a long time." Stirling was then in 
London, and he adds, " It were too great presumption in me 
to give my most humble duty to my Lord Treasurer ; but 
I never forget the obligations I am under to him for the 
many favours he hath honoured me with." 

The last, but one, of his letters in the Glasgow collection 
is written to Stirling on the 28th of January 1714, and is 
full of characteristic touches : — 

" I have yours just now, and shall do all in the affair of Mr. 

M'Kie I can As for the other affair of the presbytery of 

Paisley .... I have reason to he persuaded that such public 



* Correspondence, vol. i. p. 478. The " good things " Carstares referred 
to were, no doubt, the full recognition by France of the Hanoverian 
succession, and her disowning of the heir of the House of Stuart. He 
probably refrained from reading the proclamation for reasons akin to those 
indicated by Wodrow as operative in his own case. "I would be 
difficulted to read the King of France 'the most Christian king' to my 
people, when, it may be, in my prayer before they have been joining with 
me in praying against him, as the main pillar of Antichrist and a bloody 
persecutor of our brethren. What follows is yet more choking, — ' the con- 
clusion of a just and honourable peace.' " Ibid, vol. i. p. 464. 

f < Analecta,' vol. i. p. 221. 



XIX.] DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. 357 

fasts, at this juncture, will be looked upon as an alarming the 
country, and filling the people with jealousies of the Government, as 
if Papists were countenanced, and the bringing home the Pretender 
designed. And, besides, these fasts, joined with the noise that 
there is of arming the country, will certainly be jealoused by the 
Government. And therefore, while affairs seem to be coming to a 
crisis and a Parliament is at hand, I think it is fit for us to be 
quiet, and to give no umbrage to those in power, where plain duty 
is not concerned, as I judge it is not in the present case ; though 
we have many causes of sorrow and lamentation before God." 

Towards the crisis which Carstares apprehended, various 
dangerous elements seemed to be working, both in Church 
and State. In the Church, the Jurants and Nonjurants were 
still standing suspiciously on the verge of hostilities. Out- 
side the Church, it was alleged that Popery was rapidly 
increasing ; and it was certain that the Episcopalians were 
growing bolder, and, especially in their strongholds in the 
.North-East, more aggressive. In the House of Commons a 
Bill was introduced to resume all grants out of the Bishops' 
Eents, and to devote these to the support of the Episcopal 
clergy. The extension of the English malt-tax to Scotland 
was exciting a furious discontent, and enmity against the 
British Legislature. In the House of Lords the dissolution 
of the Union was gravely debated, and only negatived 
by the bare majority of three. Every courier from the 
Continent brought tidings of the Pretender's designs and 
preparations for coming over to claim the throne, which, 
it was shrewdly surmised, his sister desired to bequeath to 
him ; the Jacobites were furbishing their arms to be ready 
against his coming, and the sturdy Protestants of the South 
and West were thinking it time that they should do the 
same. But ere these various elements of civil discord were 
ready for explosion, their force was quenched. The Queen 
had been for months in failing health, but the end came 
before it was expected. She died on the 1st of August 1714. 
On the 5th the Elector of Hanover w T as proclaimed at Edin- 
burgh, amidst profuse demonstrations of popular loyalty and 



358 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

rejoicing. The Jacobites were disconcerted and dismayed. 
The Presbyterian friends of the Protestant succession ex- 
ulted. They seemed, to themselves, to emerge from an 
atmosphere of suspicion and insecurity — to have now less 
cause to dread their opponents and less excuse for dissen- 
sions within their own communion. There were health and 
hope in the new regime. 

" Adspice veuturo lcetantur ut omnia sseclo." 

The Commission of the General Assembly lost no time in 
meeting, and despatching a deputation to London to offer 
the Church's homage and congratulations to King George. 
Carstares was, of course, the chief deputy : and along with 
him were Mitchell, one of the ministers of Edinburgh and 
Moderator of the last General Assembly ; Hart, who had 
been the colleague of Carstares, in the Greyfriars Church ; 
Lining, the minister of Lesmahago ; and Kamsay, the minis- 
ter of Kelso. Hart has left " a journal, by way of diary," * 
of this visit to the great metropolis, which affords some 
amusing glimpses of the travellers' adventures — their appre- 
hensions of the way, their difficulties as to finding proper 
opportunities for orthodox public worship, their experience 
of London and the Court. 

Hart, Lining, and Kamsay arranged to meet Carstares 
and Mitchell at Newcastle, on the 5th of October. In pur- 
suance of this arrangement, Hart left Edinburgh on the 30th 
of September, at eleven in the forenoon, accompanied, on 
horseback, by nearly forty ministers and other gentlemen 
as far as Dalkeith. At the " Burrough Loch," he took leave 
of his "dear wife and distressed children;" at Dalkeith 
he bade adieu to his convoy of friends " all in tears " (after 
dinner), " being at that time under strong apprehensions that 
we might never all meet together again." f The journey, 
however, was most prosperous. At Morpeth, where the tra- 

* ' Journal of Mr. James Hart.' Printed at Edinburgh, 1833. Edited 
by Principal Lee. 

f Hart's Journal, p. 2. 



XIX.] DEPUTATION. TO LONDON. 359 

vellers dined, between eleven and one o'clock, Mr. Car- 
stares arrived " in a coach," and stopped at the posthouse, 
where they called on him. They then rode, and he .drove, 
to Newcastle, in the afternoon, and "we all waited upon 
him," says Hart, with a tone of unmistakable deference, 
that night. They proceeded by way of Durham, Darlington, 
and Thirsk, to York, where the jourDalist was much con- 
firmed in his Presbyterianism by witnessing the service 
in the Minster : — " There is so much of man and so little 
of God in it, and so much carnality and so little spiritu- 
ality." Carstares, and Hart's party, consisting of Messrs. 
Lining and Eamsay, and " Mr. Lining's man Adams," 
seem to have separated after this, and we hear no more 
of the former until the deputies are all assembled in 
London. They were presented at Court soon after their 
arrival, and Carstares, as their spokesman, made three 
speeches, to the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess 
respectively. 

These speeches were speedily printed and sent down to 
Scotland. Those who thought the first duty of the deputies 
was to "testify" to the new monarch against the Toleration, 
the Patronage Act, and the Abjuration, were not satisfied 
with them. " Some allege," writes Wodrow, on November 
18th, " there is too much of compliment and the courtier, 
and too little of the minister in that to the King." * 

The deputies remained for several weeks after this in 
London, and spent much of their time in trying — with 
but little success — to interest the Government, which had 
succeeded to Oxford's discredited Administration, in the 
" grievances " of the Scottish Church. Nothing, however, 
could be done (as Parliament was not sitting), and but little 
even could be promised, to correct the alleged evil effects of 
recent legislation ; but the representatives o'f the Church 
were gratified by the sympathetic language of those whom 
they addressed, and by the personal favours bestowed upon 

* Correspondence, vol. i. p. 622. 



360 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

themselves, of which a present from the King of 100Z. to 
each of them, was not the least acceptable.* On the 21st of 
December they were again introduced at Com t by the Duke 
of Montrose, in order to pay their farewell respects. " We 
had our audience in public," is Hart's report, "the King 
coming out to the Bedchamber of State, where there were 
a great deal of noblemen and gentlemen present. Mr. Car- 
stares made a short speech in Euglish, in which he expressed 
the grateful sense we had of his royal goodness, and that 
we would endeavour, more than by words, to express our 
loyalty and faithfulness to His Majesty's person and Govern- 
ment ; and that we would, in our stations, endeavour to pro- 
mote what would be for the honour and quiet of his Govern- 
ment. After which we made a low bow and retired. The 
King bowed to us with a pleasant, smiling countenance." 

They afterwards had an audience of the Prince and of 
the Princess of Wales, to each of whom Carstares made a 
farewell speech. The Princess replied *' pleasantly," when 
he had addressed her ; " I desire your good prayers for me 
and the royal family, and I shall be glad of every oppor- 
tunity to show my sincere concern for the good and welfare 
of the Church of Scotland." As they left the royal presence, 
they were followed by the Duke of Montrose, who was com- 
missioned by the King to tell Carstares and Mitchell that he 
continued to them both the office of Eoyal Chaplain, which 
they had held at the death of Queen Anne.f 

The day before Christmas all the deputies, except Car- 
stares, left London. Lining, who had sided with the Non- 
jurants, and who evidently regarded the courtly and politic 
Principal with some slight jealousy and suspicion, writes to 
Wodrow : " We have all provided horses but Mr. Carstares, 
who hath his own business to wait upon, and says he will 
follow us shortly. I fear our old friends prove our old burden 
still, and that we are not all steel to the back. I have dis- 
covered something of private counteracting of our public 

* Hart, p. 62. 

f Ibid. Preface xi. McCormick, p. 88. 



XIX.] ASSEMBLY OF 1715. 361 

concerts, even when we seemed to be unanimous — and that 
amongst five."* 

Carstares writes from London, on 13th January 1715, to 
his nephew William Dunlop : "I am like to have you for a 
colleague in the college ; for this day the D. of Montrose 
did give orders for drawing your gift : and I pray God may 
make you serviceable in that station f which seems to be 
suited to ydur genius, — and I am glad that I have had an 
opportunity of showing any kindness to your father's son. 
Tell Mr. Scott that I have been far from forgetting him ; 
and I hope he is convinced of it, ere now, by a letter to him 
under the D. of Montrose's own hand." % Then follows a 
number of messages to friends, whose interests had been 
committed to him, and for whom he had been expending 
much time and trouble at Whitehall and Kensington. " My 
affectionate service to Professor Hamilton. Tell him that 
Mr. Mitchell — to whom, by the bye, you are under very sin- 
gular obligations — will tell him anything that I have to say. 
My dear love to my sisters, and to our honest cousin Mr. 
Wm. Mure, who must not take pet at my silence, for I will 
be friends with him, whether he will or not. I heartily salute 
all my colleagues. I know you will not forget any of my 
commissions mentioned above. I shall be glad to find the 
stair and my closet such as you give me hope of.§ Heartily 
adieu." This is the last of his letters in the Graham 
Dunlop collection. 

The Nestor of the Church, who had been chosen to preside 
in her chief court at itsfirst meeting after the Union of the 
Legislature, was again raised to the same honour in the first 
Assembly which met after the* accession of the House of 
Hanover. His friend Mitchell, on resigning the chair to 
him, adopted the unusual course of formally addressing him 

* Hart. Preface xi. 
t As Professor at Edinburgh. 

% On Mar's dismissal Montrose became Secretary of State. 
§ The Town Council had undertaken to repair his house this winter. 
Council Records, vol. xli. p. 564. 



362 WILLIAM CABSTARES. [Chap, 

in a short speech, in which he assured Carstares that in 
choosing him, by an almost unanimous vote, to be Moderator, 
after an event in the national history so momentous as a 
change of dynasty, the Church had expressed in the strong- 
est way her confidence in his ability to serve her. After 
the Commissioner had delivered the King's letter and made 
the customary address to the Assembly, Carstares spoke at 
considerable length. He adverted to the happy succession 
of the Protestant house, and the "surprising Providence" 
which had brought it peaceably to pass. With an implicit 
rebuke to those zealots who seemed to expect that King 
George should assume the " dispensing power " for the sake 
of repealing the Toleration and the Abjuration oath, he 
declared, " There are indeed some grievances that we groan 
under, to which our Sovereign alone cannot give a redress, 
which yet we hope in good time we may, through his Ma- 
jesty's kind interposition, be eased of." His own increasing- 
years, he feared, might hinder his proper discharge of the 
duties they had entrusted to him, but he would try to do his 
part with all candour and fairness ; and he took their choice 
of him as a proof of moderation, and of their disregard of the 
reproaches which his maligners had cast on him, and of their 
confidence in his honest desire to promote the true interests 
of the Church.* 

His control is visible in the action of the Church at this 
rather critical time. The irritating legislation of the last 
eight years had disgusted the Scotch people with the Union ; 
and the Church, injured by the Toleration, and insulted by 
the Oath of Abjuration, had been disposed to look with 
moody indifference, if not approval, on the manifestations 
of popular dislike of the treaty of 1707. 

But when the flames of Jacobite rebellion were beginning 
to kindle in the North, and the Whigs and Presbyterians 
to find that Tories and Episcopalians were much keener for 
repeal than themselves, the Church could not safely remain 



* MS. RecordSj Glasgow. Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 



2a 



XIX.] 124a PSALM. 363 

passive. The Assembly, under Carstares's guidance, gave 
forth no uncertain sound. Calmly repressing all irregular 
or unnecessary agitation about its own special causes of com- 
plaint, it recalled the whole country to a just sense of the 
danger attending any policy which should seek to repeal the 
Union, by an exhibition of its righteous zeal for the Pro- 
testant dynasty, which owed its accession to that Union. 

Two ministers in' Aberdeenshire had refused to keep the 
day appointed for thanksgiving for the accession of King- 
George, and had never prayed for him since he assumed the 
crown. Their case was brought before the Assembly. Car- 
stares had always advocated a policy of forbearance and 
comprehension, where vital interests were not at stake ; 
but in this instance he felt that the Church's sense of the 
evil of disaffection to the reigning house could not be too 
firmly marked. The decision of the Assembly was that the 
two ministers should be deposed ; and after the Moderator 
had addressed them very pathetically, and had pointed out 
the magnitude of their offence against Church and State, he 
pronounced the solemn sentence which cut them off from 
the ministry.* 

The proceedings of the Assembly were otherwise unevent- 
ful, and terminated on the 17th of May. It was the custom 
then, as it is now, to sing a psalm before the closing bene- 
diction is pronounced by the Moderator. The psalm which 
Carstares chose was the 124th, that song of exultant faith, 
which had always in Scotland been associated with the 
triumph of the " Good Cause." t As he looked back upon 

* Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 33. 

f-Acts of Assembly, 1714. 

When, in 1582, John Durie, the banished minister, returned from his 
exile, and came up from Leith to Edinburgh, 200 men met him at the 
G allow Green, and, their number ever increasing, followed him within the 
Nether Bow. " There they began to sing the 124th Psalm, ' Now Israel 
may say,' &c, and sang in four parts, known to most of the people. They 
came up the street till they came to the Great Kirk, singing thus all the 

way The Duke [Lennox] was astonished, and more affrayed at 

that sight than at anything he had ever seen before in Scotland, and rave 
his beard for anger." — Calderwood's Hist. iii. 646 (Wodrow Soc. edition.). 



364 WILLIAM CARSTARES. [Chap. 

his father's and his kindred's sufferings, and his own years 
of exile and imprisonment — on the hazards of the Kevo- 
lution, and the struggle with the wounded hydra of political 
prelacy — on the Union, and the subsequent encroachments 
on rights and claims that the Church had long held in- 
disputable — on the perilous discontents and disaffections 
which had ensued, and which he had often found it dif- 
ficult to hold in check — on the covert intrigues and undis- 
guised hostilities which, but a few months ago, had been 
encouraged in high places, and seemed not unlikely to pre- 
vail against the cause of liberty and justice ; and as he now 
saw the principles for which, since his boyhood, he had 
wrought and suffered, at last firmly established, the absolutist 
and persecuting house of Stuart finally renounced, and the 
security of the national Church confirmed under a new and 
distinctively Protestant dynasty — he well might invite his 
friends and brethren to join in praising God in the ancient 
strain, never more appropriate, — 

" Even as a bird 

Out of the fowler's snare 
Escapes away, so is our soul set free ; 

Broke are their nets, and thus escaped we. 
Therefore our help 

Is in the Lord's great name, 
Who heaven and earth 

By his great power did frame." 

Carstares's last official act, of which we have a record, was 
the writing of a letter to the Scottish Consistory at Eotter- 
dam, intimating that the Assembly had loosed from his 
charge in Scotland the minister who had been chosen by the 
Church in that city. 

"I persuade myself," he adds, after the official statement, 
" that none of you will doubt my having always been heartily con- 
cerned for your interest, for I look upon myself as under special 
obligations to be so, and to have more than common interest in you. 
However what is above, is, at the appointment of the General 



XIX.] DEATH AND BURIAL. 365 

Assembly, signified to you by him, who is to you all, yours in true 
affection to love and serve, 

" William Carstares, Moderator." * 

During the summer of 1715 Carstares was still active, and 
engaged in all his usual work. But in the month of August 
he was seized with an apoplectic fit. It gave a violent 
shock to his constitution, and though it yielded to medical 
treatment, left him with faculties somewhat impaired, and 
oppressed by a lethargy which he could not shake off.t He 
recovered, however, so far as to be able to write ; and one of 
his latest occupations was the preparation of an account of 
his arrest, imprisonment, trial, and torture, in 1684 and 1685, 
which Wodrow had asked him to contribute to the history 
of the "Sufferings." % 

In December his malady returned, and it was evident that 
the end drew near. He awaited it in "great peace and 
serenity." A little while before his death those who watched 
beside him heard him say, " I have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

He died on Wednesday, the 28th December 1715, in the 
67th year of his age. § 

On Monday the 2nd of January he was carried to a grave 
b aside his father's, in that historic churchyard of the Grey- 
friars, which, since the Reformation, had received the ashes 
of many of the most illustrious of his countrymen. There lay 
George Buchanan, the sagest and most learned of Scots. 
There, too, rested from his labours Alexander Henderson, 
the great leader of the Scottish Church in her conflict with 
the absolutism of Charles I. Thither, to be interred hard 



* Steven., p. 149. f McCormick, p. 88. 

% Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 44. History, vol. iv. p. 96. 

§ ' Analecta,' vol. ii. p. 311. McCormick, p. 88. " On Wednesday last 
Mr. William Carstares, principal of our college and one of the ministers of 
the New Church, departed this life, and is very much lamented, being a 
man of great worth, piety, and learning, and very charitable to the poor." — 
Scots Courant of December 30, 1715. 



3C6 WILLIAM CARSTABES. [Chap. 

by the graves of martyrs whose blood he had shed, his 
friends had carried the body of Sir George Mackenzie.* 
To the same sacred enclosure a vast throng had followed the 
bier of his great rival Sir James Steuart. 

The place where John Carstares had been buried, and 
which was now chosen for the burial of his illustrious son, 
was next to that of the other great Churchman,t whose tomb 
still bore marks of the bullets with which the soldiers of 
Charles II. had tried to efface the name of Henderson, and 
the legend " libertatis et disciplinae ecclesiasticse propugnator 
fuit acerrimus." " When his body was laid in the dust, two 
men were observed to turn aside from the rest of the com- 
pany, and bursting into tears bewail their mutual loss. 
Upon inquiry it was found that they were two Nonjurant 
clergymen (Episcopal), whose families for a considerable 
time had been supported by his benefactions." % 

* " When I stand in that historic cemetery, before the tombs of the 
ancient Covenanters, my heart glows with respect for honourable though 
mistaken adversaries. When I seek for the grave of Carstares, or gaze on 
the tomb of Robertson, I delight in the thought that spirits so noble and 
so generous as theirs were fellow-workers and forerunners in the mission 
which I, and those with whom I labour, delight to honour. But when I 
turn to the monument of the Bloody Mackenzie, it is with the bitter 
thought that I see there the memorial of a valued friend who has betrayed 
and disgraced a noble cause, and given occasion, it may be, to the enemies 
of freedom, charity, and truth, to blaspheme those holy names." — Dean 
Stanley, ' Church of Scotland,' p. 133. 

f Mrs. Carstares died in 1724, and was buried beside her husband, 
" betwixt Hendersons tomb and the wall." In 1726, Sarah Carstares (Mrs. 
Dunlop) petitions the Town Council for permission to erect a monument 
"close by the wall, behind Mr. Henderson's tomb," where she states her 
father, John Carstares, had been buried, and, beside him, her brother and 
her son, William Dunlop, " late Eegius Professor of Divinity and Church 
History." — ' Greyfriars Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions :' Introduc- 
tion, p. lxxxi. 

% McCormick, p. 91. McCormick says the Latin inscription on Car- 
stares's monument was already beginning to fade in 1793. It has now 
entirely faded. The monument itself still remains, though the friable 
stone has suffered much damage from the weather. It stands against the 
wall, and right opposite the tomb of Henderson. The likeness prefixed to 
tins volume is from the small original painting, in the possession of Mr. 



XIX.] CONCLUSION. 367 

Thus " having served his generation," he passed away. 
His name is not one that should be forgotten by his country- 
men. The gratitude for liberties vindicated and rights 
secured, which should never die out of the memory of a free 
people, is due to all those who, "fallen on evil tongues and 
evil days, with darkness and with dangers compassed round," 
have been faithful to the cause of civil and religious liberty. 

Among those who were the heroes and martyrs of that 
cause, in times when to be a " leading Liberal " in Scotland 
had a meaning somewhat more dignified and earnest than 
now attaches to the term, — who laid the broad foundations of 
all that is soundest in our national welfare, by helping to 
overthrow a worthless dynasty and an unrighteous Church, 
no one is entitled to higher honour than he whose career I 
have tried to sketch. Ardent yet cautious, diplomatic yet 
incorruptible, he watched and waited and suffered, during 
the night of oppression and misrule. After helping to pre- 
pare the way of the deliverer, and doing his devoir with 
perfect courage and address in the contest which overthrew 
the corrupt system, civil and ecclesiastical, under which his 
native land groaned, he, when the brunt of the battle was 
over, was as forbearing and conciliatory as he had been 
resolute and brave, — a practical exponent of the gospel of 
charity and peace. 

A courtier, he never used the royal favour for his private 
ends. A Churchman, he never sought to separate the 
interests of his order from the interests of the nation. A 
statesman of rare sagacity and knowledge of statecraft, yet 
forbidden to enter in person the arena of public politics, he 
stood by without jealousy, ill-will, or intrigue, content if, 
through his private influence, he could impart to the policy 
of others a character that should be just, tolerant, and liberal. 
His principles and his action were free from all harshness 



Graham Dunlop (artist unknown). There is a larger portrait in the senate 
hall of the University of Edinburgh, by Aikman (1682-1731), which was 
engraved by Cooper. The engraving is very scarce. 
For two Elegies on Carstares, see Appendix iv. 



368 WILLIAM CAESTABES. [Chap. XIX. 

and violence of extremes. A Presbyterian, bred in an age 
of prelatic persecution and sacerdotal arrogance, he was 
indulgent to differences of religious opinion, government, and 
ritual. A Liberal, in days when political parties gave no 
quarter in their embittered strife, his Liberalism was calm 
with the wisdom of experience, pure from all passion of the 
mob, large in its scope, constructive and conservative even in 
the midst of reform and revolution. 

That the " Kevolution Settlement," in Church and State, 
was firmly established in Scotland ; that the Union was 
peaceably effected ; that the Church, instead of splitting into 
a number of hostile and fanatical sects, gradually accom- 
modated itself to that relation with the State which at once 
guaranteed its constitutional freedom, and equipped it most 
efficiently for its sacred work, — was mainly owing to Carstares. 
Men who wield the sword and die in battle, and men who, 
with flaming zeal and quenchless energy, lead stormy factions 
in days of popular excitement, stamp their names in deeper 
impress upon the common memory than those who do the 
more quiet, thoughtful, and laborious work of controlling 
the impatient and inexperienced, and guiding the general 
intelligence and action. But when the havoc of the more 
hasty and passionate work has swept past, the result of the 
more quiet and orderly abides, although the names of the 
workers may be forgotten. For one Scotsman who has 
heard the name of Carstares, thousands are familiar with 
that of Dundee, though the actual life's work of the one is 
woven into the very framework of our national being and 
political constitution, and that of the other has been long- 
since cast into the limbo of unremembered vanities. The 
verdict of History ought to redress the injustices of popular 
opinion and ignorant caprice, and raise the statues of the 
real heroes to their pedestals. To it the memory of Carstares 
appeals; and I believe it will accord him, as he deserves, a 
place among the best and highest in the long and splendid 
roll of those Scotchmen, who have deserved well of the 
republic. 



APPENDIX 



No. I. 

Carstares's deposition, as published by the Privy Council, was as 
follows : — 

" Edinburgh Castle, Sept. 8, 1684. 
" Mr. William Carstares, being examined upon oath conform to the 
condescension given in by him, and on the terms therein men- 
tioned, deposes that, about November or December 1682, James 
Steuart, brother to the Laird of Coltness, wrote a letter to him 
from Holland, importing that if any considerable sum of money 
could be procured from England, something of importance might 
be done in Scotland. The which letter he had an inclination to 
inform Shepherd in Abchurch Lane, merchant in London, of; but 
before he could do it, he wrote to Mr. Steuart above named, to know 
from him if he might do it ; and Mr. Steuart having consented, he 
communicated the said letter to Mr. Shepherd, who told the 
Deponent that he would communicate the contents of it to some 
persons in England, but did at that time name nobody, as the 
Deponent thinks. Some time thereafter, Mr. Shepherd told the 
Deponent that he had communicated the contents of the letter 
above named to Colonel Sidney, and that Colonel Dan vers was 
present, and told the Deponent that Colonel Sidney was averse 
from employing the Earl of Argyle, or meddling with him, 
judging him a man too much affected to the Eoyal Family and 
inclined to the present Church government; yet Mr. Shepherd, 
being put upon it by the Deponent, still urged that one might be 
sent to the Earl of Argyle, but as Mr. Shepherd told him, he was 
suspected upon the account of his urging so much, yet afterwards 
he pressed, without the Deponent's knowledge, that the Deponent 
being to go to Holland however, might have some commission to 
the Earl of Argyle; which he having informed the Deponent 
of, the Deponent told him that he himself would not be concerned, 

2 B 



370 . APPENDIX. 



but if they would send another, he would introduce him ; but 
nothing of this was done, upon which the Deponent went over, 
without any commission from anybody, to Holland, never meeting 
with James Steuart above named. He was introduced to the Earl 
of Argyle, with whom he had never before conversed, and did 
there discuss what had passed betwixt Mr. Shepherd and him, and 
particularly about remitting of money to the said Earl from 
England ; of which the said Mr. Steuart had written to the 
Deponent, namely of £30,000 sterling, and of the raising of 1000 
horse and dragoons, and the securing the Castle of Edinburgh, 
as a matter of the greatest importance. The method of doing this 
was proposed by the Deponent to be one hour, or thereby, after the 
relieving of the guards ; but the Earl did not relish this proposition, 
as dangerous ; and that the Castle would fall of consequence, after 
the work abroad was done. James Steuart was of the Deponent's 
opinion for seizing the Castle, because it would secure Edinburgh, 
the magazines, and arms. As to the 1000 horse and dragoons, my 
Lord Argyle was of opinion that without them nothing was to be 
done, and that if that number were raised in England to the said 
Earl, he would come into Scotland with them, and that there being 
so few horse and dragoons to meet them, he judged he might get the 
country without trouble, having such a standing body for their friends 
to rendezvous to ; and the said Earl said he could show the Deponent 
the convenient places for landing if he understood, and as the 
Deponent remembers, where the ships could attend. The Deponent 
remembers not the names of the places. The Deponent spoke to 
the Lord Stair ; but cannot be positive that he named the affair to 
him, but found him shy ; but the Earl of Argyle told him he 
thought Stair might be gained to them, and that the Earl of 
Loudoun being a man of good reason and disobliged, would 
have great influence upon the country; and recommended the 
Deponent to Major Holms, with whom the Deponent had some 
acquaintance before, and had brought over a letter from him to the 
Earl of Argyle, but the Deponent had not then communicated 
anything to the said Holms. James Steuart laid down a way of 
correspondence by cyphers and false names, and sent them over to 
Holms and the Deponent for their use (which names and cyphers 
are now in the hands of Her Majesty's officers as the Deponent 
supposes), and did desire the Deponent earnestly to propose the 
£30,000 sterling above named, to the party in England, and did 
not propose any less ; for as the Earl told the Deponent, he had 
particularly calculated the expense for arms, ammunition, &c. 



APPENDIX. 371 



But James Steuart said, that if some less could be had, the Earl 
would content himself, if better might not be ; but the Earl always 
said, that there was nothing to be done without the body of horse 
and dragoons above mentioned. During the time of the Deponent 
his abode in Holland, though he had several letters from Shepherd, 
yet there was no satisfactory account, till some time after the 
Deponent parted from the Earl of Argyle and was making for 
a ship at Eotterdam to transport himself to England. James 
Steuart wrote to him that there was hopes of the money. The next 
day after the Deponent came to England he met with Sir John 
Cochran, who, with Commissar Monro and Jerviswood, was at 
London before he came over ; and deposes, that he knows not the 
account of their coming, more than for the perfecting the trans- 
action about Carolina : and having acquainted Sir John Cochran 
with the Earl's demands of the £30,000 sterling and the 1000 
horse and dragoons, Sir John carried him to the Lord Russell, to 
whom the Deponent proposed the affair, but being an absolute 
stranger to the Deponent, had no return from him at that time ; 
but afterwards having met him accidentally at Mr. Shepherd's 
house, where he, the Lord Russell, had come to speak to Shepherd 
about the money above named, as Mr. Shepherd told the Deponent. 
The Deponent (when they were done speakiog) desired to speak to 
the Lord Russell, which the Lord Russell did, and having reiterated 
the former proposition for the £30,000 sterling and the 1000 
horse and dragoons, he, the Lord Russell, told the Deponent they 
could not get so much raised at the time, but if they had £10,000 
to begin, that would draw people in. And when they were once 
in, they would soon be brought to more ; but as for the 1000 
horse and dragoons, he would say nothing at the present, for that 
behoved to be concerted upon the Borders. The Deponent made 
the same ^proposal to Mr. Ferguson, who was much concerned in 
the affair, and zealous for the promoting of it. This Mr. 
Ferguson had in October or November before, as the Deponent 
remembers in a conversation with the Deponent in Cheapside, or 
the street somewhere thereabout — said, that for the saving of 
innocent blood, it would be necessary to cut off a few, insinuating 
the King and Duke, but cannot be positive whether he named them 
or not, to which the Deponent said, That's work for our wild 
people in Scotland : my conscience does not serve me for such 
things. After which the Deponent had never any particular 
discourse with Ferguson, as to that matter ; but as to the other 
affair, Ferguson told the Deponent that he was doing what he 

2 B 2 



372 APPENDIX. 



could to get it effectuate. As particularly that lie spoke to one 
Major Wildman, who is not of the Deponent his acquaintance. 
Ferguson blamed always Sidney, as driving designs of his own. 
The Deponent met twice or thrice with the Lord Melvil, Sir 
John Cochran, Jerviswood, Commissar Monro, the two Cessnocks, 
Mongomery of Langshaw, and one, Mr. Veifcch, where they dis- 
coursed of money to be sent to Argyle, in order to carrying on 
the affair, and though he cannot be positive the affair was named, 
yet it was understood by himself, and as he conceives by all 
present, to be for rising in arms, for rectifying the Government. 
Commissar Monro, Lord Melvil, and the two Cessnocks, were 
against meddling with the English, because they judged them 
men that would talk, and would not do, but were more inclined to 
do something by themselves, if it could be done. The Lord 
Melvil thought everything hazardous, and therefore the Deponent 
cannot say he was positive in anything, but was most inclined to 
have the Duke of Monmouth to head them in Scotland, of which no 
particular method was laid down. Jerviswood, the Deponent, and 
Mr. Yeitch, were for taking money at one of these meetings. It 
was resolved, that Mr. Martin, late Clerk to the Justice Court, 
should be sent to Scotland, to desire their friends to hinder the 
country from rising or taking rash resolutions upon the account of 
the Council, till they should see how matters went in England. 
The said Martin did go at the charges of the gentlemen of the 
meeting, and was directed to the Laird of Polwart and Torwoodlie, 
who sent back word that it would not be found so easy a matter to 
get the gentry of Scotland to concur. But afterwards in a letter 
to Commissar Monro, Polwart wrote that the country was readier 
to concur than they had imagined, or something to that purpose 
The Deponent, as above said, having brought over a key from 
Holland to serve himself and Major Holms, he remembers not that 
ever he had an exact copy of it, but that sometimes the one, some- 
times the other, keeped it, and so it chanced to be in his custody 
when a letter from the Earl of Argyle came to Major Holms, 
intimating that he would join with the Duke of Monmouth, and 
follow his measures, or obey his directions. This Mr. Veitch 
thought fit to communicate to the Duke of Monmouth, and for the 
understanding of it was brought to the Deponent, and he gave the 
key to Mr. Veitch, who as the Deponent was informed, was to give 
it and the letter to Mr. Ferguson, and he to show it to the Duke 
of Monmouth ; but what was done in it, the Deponent knows not. 
The Deponent heard the design of killing the King and Duke, 



APPENDIX. 373 



from Mr. Shepherd, who told the Deponent some were full upon it. 
The Deponent heard that Aaron Smith was sent by those in 
England to call Sir John Cochran, on the account of Carolina, but 
that he does not know Aaron Smith, nor any more of that matter, 
not being concerned in it. Shepherd named young Hampden 
frequently as concerned in these matters. 

"Signed at Edinburgh Castle, the 8th of September, 1684, and 
renewed the 18th of the same month. 

" William Carstares. 
Perth Cancell. I. P. D." 



No. II. 

LATTER WILL AND TESTAMENT OF MR. JOHN 
CARSTARES. 

At Quarrelltown, Apryle 24, 1664. 

I Mr. John Carstares, an unworthie minister of the Gospell, being 
putt, in the holie and good providence of God not for my sin nor 
any iniquitie found in my hand by men (thoughe there be alone 
verie muche for whiche he may most justlie charge me, for the 
pardone wherof I desyre to flee to Jesus Christ the propitiatione 
for the sins of the electe world) but for bearing witnesse to a 
faithfull testimony given by my disseast brother-in-law Mr. 
James Wood on his deathbed to Presbyterian Government, and 
because of my not being free in my conscience to appear before the 
High Commission without a testimony against the constitution of 
it, whiche throughe the malice of some Churchmen armed with the 
power of the civil sword could not have been without eminent 
hazard of my lyfe. Being put, I say, to flie for my own preser- 
vatione according to the Lord's warrant, Matt 10. v. 23, and to 
wander (tell thou my wanderings Lord) I know not well whither : 
And not knowing in this case how soon I may by a violent or 
naturall death be removed, desyring in well doing to committ the 
keeping of my soul unto God as unto a faithfull Creator and 
cordiallie to take him for a portione to my selfe to my wyfe (who 
hath alonge all this hour of tentatione bein no tentatione to me 
but a most faithfull companion in my tribulatione and (if I have 
anay interest there) in the kingdome and patience of Jesus 
Chryst) and to the children which he hath graciouslie given unto 
us, I have thought fitt being for present in health of bodie and 



74 APPENDIX 



ordinarie soundnesse of mynd to setle my small affaires the best 
way I can by making my latter will and testament thus : — The 
litle estate I have comes to about nyntein thousand merkes, fyve 
wherof is in my wnckle Sir John Carstares of Kilconwher 
his hand, tuo in the Laird of Ealystoun his hand, tuo in the 
young Laird of Duchall his hand (nou in William Hamiltoun 
of Wish aw his hand), tuo in Sir William Mure of Eowallan 
his hand, one in William Hammiltown of Barnes his hand. I 
reckon my duelling house in Glasgow to be at least worth tuo 
thousand merkes, for I gave six and tuentie hundred merkes for 
it, besyde nigh three hundred merkes I expended on it since I 
bought it, whiche I desyre may be sold with the first convenience. 
In all whiche sumes, coming to fourteen thousand merkes, my wyfe 
Jonet Mure was lyferented, but some of the bonds have been 
changed since and drauen at a distance wherin she is "not men- 
tioned as lyferenter, therfore that she may sustain no prejudice I 
doe hereby declare that it is my will and doe accordinglie 
expresselie appoynt that the said Jonet Mure, my verie loving 
spowse, shall have after my desseasse during all the tyme of 
hir life the yearlie interest of the forsaid severall sumes amounting 
in whole to fourteen thousand merkes, and allowes and appoynts if 
it be necessarie that the severall bonds be reneued wherein hir 
lyferent is not specified that the said clause may be insert in them. 
There is further of the forsaid nynteen thousand merkes fyve 
thousand in the noble lord my lord Marquesse of Argyle his 
hand, with four yeares interest at Candlemesse or Lambesse 
last bypast. Out of all which sumes I doe provyde my children 
as followeth : I doe provyde for and appoynt unto my eldest 
son, William, the sum of fyve thousand merkes ; to my second 
son, Alexander, tuo thousand and fyve hundred merkes ; to my 
third son, James, tuo thousand merkes ; to my eldest daughter, 
Sarah, three thousand merkes ; to my second daughter, Katharine, 
tuo thousand and fyve hundred merkes; to my third daughter, 
Ursula, tuo thousand merkes, and to the chyld wherwith my 
wyfe presentlie is, whither son or daughter, if the Lord shall 
think fit to bring it safe to the world, tuo thousand merkes. And 
if any of the forsaid sumes due to me, by the forsaid persons conforme 
to the tenure of their bonds granted to me thereanent (whiche 
are all in my wyfe's custodie, excepte my Lord of Argyle's bonds 
that is in Wishawe's custodie) with the rights of the duelling house in 
Glasgow, shall proove ineffectuall for the provision of my children 
then and in that case I give full and absolute pouer to my beloved 



APPENDIX. . 375 



spouse Jonet Mure, uith the other worthie friends nominated after- 
ward for the oversight of my children and thair affaires, to propor- 
tion the losse amongst all the children as their severall provisions 
may best bear the same, so that if it may be they that have least 
may have a thousand pounds. And I doe hereby declaire and 
appoynt that this their deed shall be as valid as to all effectes 
whatsoever, as if I my selfe had actuallie done it in myne oun 
tyme. And if anay of the children shall presume to gainsay, then 
in that case I declare and appoynt that anay provision I have made 
to them by this my Latter Will shall be utterlie null and voyd as to 
their behoofe and advantage, as if it had never bein made by me, 
ordaining withall that the provision of such shall be divyded 
amongst the rest equallie. And if it shall please the Lord to 
remove anay of the children by death before they come to the 
yeares that will by the law capacitat them to dispose upon their 
own portions, then and in that case I appoynt the one-halfe or third 
part, as their mother and friends after nominated shall think most 
fitt, to come to my eldest son "William, and the other halfe in 
tuo parts to be equallie divyded amongst the rest of my children. 
I leave my loving and faithfull spouse Jonet Mure my sole 
executrix, to intromett with my goods and gear, such as my hous- 
holde stuffe and plenishing, reserving the airscape, my books, which 
will be well worth a thousand merkes thoughe the third part of the 
pryce be given down and all bygone interests of whatsoever principall 
sumes due to me, and out of these I appoynt hir to pay anay litle 
thinge I am owing whiche she knows. And I allow no persons in the 
world whether my children or anay others whatsoever to make anay 
question or doubt of what she shall give up as debts owing by me 
nor to call hir to ane account but as she shall please for the particular 
fore-mentioned books, household stuffe, and by-run interests ; and 
this trust I dar confidentlie putt into hir, being well assured that she 
will be faithfullie answerable to it. And I nominat and appoynt 
my verie loving spowse Jonet Mure, the Lairds of Ealstown elder 
and younger, the Lairds of Hallcraige elder and younger, James 
Mure of Bellibregage in Irland, William Porterfield of Quarreltown, 
Mr. Alexander Dimlop minister at Pasely, William Hammiltown of 
Wishaw, Sir John Carstares my wnckle, and William Sandilands 
my brother, when they may be had, for they tuo live at a great 
distance, tutors to my children and to take as in my rowm and 
place the oversight of them all, whither under tutorie or not, and of 
all their affaires and to doe in the premissis, and what else shall be 
found by them or anay tuo or three of them for the reall good of 



376 APPENDIX. 



my children by chairging and renewing of bonds, selling and 
disposing of houses, transferring and uplifting of sumes, and giving 
such proportions to such of the children as shall apply themselves 
to anay calling requyring the same, and all other things as fullie 
and uncontrollablie as I myselfe could have done. And I doe 
hereby requyre and solemnlie charge all my children to yeald up 
themselves as to be disposed upon in all their concernments by 
them and to be obedient to them, acquiescing as to all things 
in their determination as they wolde have done in myne as they 
wolde not displease God and crosse their father's Latter Will. As 
to them all so I doe more particularlie seriouslie recommend and 
committ their Christian and ingenuous educatione to my faithfull 
spowse their mother, willing, exhorting, and obtesting them all to 
carie towards hir uith that love, respecte, and obedience that 
becomes. I hope she will keep them with hir selfe (but when its 
other way es necessarie for their good) so longe as she shall after 
my disseasse live wnmarried, all whiche tyme and till they be 
otherwayes disposed upon, I doe allow hir to uplift and make use of 
as she shall think fitt the yearlie interest of the whole nynteen 
thousand merkes. And if she shall think meet to change hir 
conditione of lyfe after my disseasse and to mary, wherein I doe 
heartilie leave hir to hir own libertie, I hope she will for my cause 
be kind to the children, and consider, since they have so little 
besyde (and it may come to lesse then no thinge), what she may let 
goe of hir joynture, wherin also I can with much quyetnesse 
of mynd lippen to hir, having found hir alwayes tender of me and 
them. I desyre she may, when she can convenientlie, and that out 
of the forsaid moveables, give to M. James Blair, or any other fitt 
person, fiftie merkes Scotts for the use of the poor of Cathcart. 
Finallie I recommend my loving spowse, my children, and thar 
overseers to take advyce when need is from Judge Ker, my 
honoured, worthie, and faithfull friend. And this I allow to stand 
in force as my Latter Will and Testament. In witnesse wherof I 
have wreatten and subscrybed thir presents with myne oun hand at 
Quarreltown the twentie-four day of Apryle, j m vj c threescore and 
four yeares ; befor thir witnesses William Porterfield of Quarreltown 
and Mr. James Stirline minister at Pasely 

(Signed) Mr. J. Carstares 

„ W. Porterfield, witnes 

Mr. J. Stirling, witnes. 



APPENDIX. 377 



No. III. 

Catalogus Librorum Gul. Cavstares. April 9. Londini 1685. 

1. Eylsemii conciones sacrae comae applicatae, sive piae 

animas deliciae. 

2. Clopenburgii compendium. Socinianisrni confutatuin. 

3. Voetii oratio funebris in obituin Scbotani. 

4. Hoornbecki exanien bullae papalis. 

5. Flockenii opera theologica. 

6. Dallaei Vindiciae. 

7. Daubaueri Jura, &c. 

8. Essenii triumpbus cruois. 

9. Pauli Yoet tbeologia naturalis, et disquisitio de anima 

separata. 

10. Kircbwajeri Nepos illustratus. 

11. Altbusii Politica. Editio 5 ta . 

12. Junii et Tremollii Bibl. latina. 

13. Leusdeni Biblia Hebraica. 

14. Voetii select, disp. pars 5 ta . 

15. Spanbernii Vindiciae biblicae. 

16. Altingii tbeologia Historica. 

17. Altingii tbeologia problem. 

18. Introduction a la langue Francoise. 

19. Sept Sermons par Durant. 

20. Itinerarium Benjaminis. 

21. Institutiones juris civilis. 

22. Tbe Bisbop of Dunblain's Accommodation examined. 

23. Essenii system, tbeol. torn. 2 dU3 . 

24. Scaliger de subtilitate, contra Cardanum. 

25. Fernelii Medicina. 

26. Triglandii trina dei gratia. 

27. Stegmanni Plotinianismus. 

28. Compendiosa metbodus discendi linguam Germanicam, 

Gallicam, et Italicam. 
29.* Rbetorfortis examen Armin. 2 vol. 

30. Gentile tus contra Maccbiavellum. 

31. Voetii confraternitas Mariana. 

32. Confessio et Catecbesis eccles. Belgicarum. 

33. Berkringeri Dissertatio de Conciliis. 

34. Voetii Bibliotbeca. 

* Rutherford, 



378 APPENDIX. 



35. Omphalii Rlietorica. 

36. Wendelini Tlieologia Christiana ed. 3 tia . 

37. Leusdeni Clavis graeca novi Testament i. 

38. Carninii Apparatus bellicus contra Libertinos. 

39. Grammatica Gallica de la Grue. 

40. Testarnentum Gra3cum. 

41. Justini historia. 

42. Trelcatii loci communes. 

43. Taciti Annales. 

44. Pauli Yoet Jurisprud. sacra. 

45. Beza de repudiis. 

46. Leusdeni manuale hebraicuin et clialdaicum. 

47. The covenant between God and man. 

48. Rhetorfortis Exercit. Apologet. 

49. Voet. de Idololatria Indirecta. 

50. Herebordii Ethica, et Maccovii Metaphysiea. 

51. Rosasi Virgilius triumphans. 

52. Eevii Cartesiomania, vol. 2. 

53. Voet. de coelo Baaatorum, et bismortuis. 

54. Wolzogivus de Scripturarum interprete. 

55. Thaddsei Conciliatorium Biblicum. 

56. Leusdeni Philologus Hebraeus. 

57. Turretinus de Satisfactione. 

58. Scharpii Symphonia. 

59. Valerius Maximus. 

60. Yarrow's soveraign Comforts. 

61. Dan. Voet. Meletem. philos. 

62. Compendium philosoph. manuscriptum. 

63. Paul. Voet. de duellis. 

64. Hornii dissert, politico. 

65. Sunragium Theologorum Magna3 Britanniae de 5 Articulis 

66. Horatii poemata. 

67. Dan. Voet. Pneumatica. 

68. Whitakerus de Scrip tura. 

69. Juelli Apologia. 

70. Ovidii Epistolae. 

71. Synopsis physica. 

72. The Monk unveiled. 

73. The Countess of Kent's manual. 

74. Bovet of Witchcraft. 



APPENDIX. 379 



No. IV. 

In Obitum Desideratissimi 

Gulielmi Carstarii, 

Academic JACOBI Regis Edinhargenae GymnasiarchaB, 

ELEGIA. 

MOLLI Membra Toro stratus cum mane jacerem, 

Et premeret Somnus 3 talia visa mihi. 
Astitit ante Oeulos Vultus suffusa nitentes 

EDINU31 Luctu ; tristis, Acerba gemens. 
ALMAque flens MATER, riguos urgebat Ocellos : 

Vixque sinunt Lachrymae haec tristia Dicta dare. 
" Consilio qui nos, Meritis qui saspe juvabat 

" Occidit : Huic quis par repperiendus erit ? 
" Temperet a Lachrymis quis ferreus ? ipse maderet 
" DE3IOCBITUS Fletu, tristia Fata sciat. 
Et pallere mihi visa est ECCLESIA, obortas 
Extincto Tenebras Lumine questa sibi. 
Orbatamque suo Fulcro titubasse putavi : 

Hos & lugubres hausimus Aure Sonos. 
" Raptus abest is cui Veri Rectique tenaci 

" Dulce solum PATRIAE vertere Dulce fait. 
" In PATRIAMque Eedux qui effulsit Lumine miro 

" Nostri semper Honos Ordinis atque Decus. 
" Lilia marcescunt, perit heu ! Flos saspe Rosarum, 
" Infelix Lolium dum dominatur Agris. 
Latius bine planctum Serpentem gliscere vidi : 

Eegia Maerore & tangitur ipsa Domus. 
Rus fremit, Urbs plangit, deflentes Lumine cassum : 

Ipsas PIERIDES ingemuisse putes. 
Excussus Somno, Lachrymis exclamo profusis, 

" CABSTABIUS Magnus, proh Dolor ! occubuit. 
" ALMA Ducem MATER gemit hunc, hunc SCOTIA Civem 

" Luget : Et hinc Planctus visus adesse mihi. 
" Hujus ad Exemplum instituant Homines modo Vitam, 

" Aurea tu nasci denuo Saecla putes. 
" Tunc iterum colerent PAX & CONCORDIA Terras, 

" His ASTR^EA Comes linqueret ipsa Polum. 
" Non ita distraherent infesta infaustaque CLERUM 
" Schismata : Non Fratrum Gratia rara foret." J. K. 



380 APPENDIX. 



In Obitum Desideratissimi 
Gulielmi Carstarii, S.S.T.D. 
Academiae Edinburgense Gymnasiarchae, 
ELEGIA. 

SCOTIA SE tanti Matrem miratur Alumni ! 

Et TE sublatum Terra BBITANNA gemit. 
ALMA Ducem MATER dolet HUNC, ECCLESIA Patrem, 

Atque HOMINES Civem ex nobiliore Luto. 
SCOTIA TE raptum dolet, immedicabile Vulnus ! 

TE MEC^NATEM CASTALIDUMque Chorus. 
Et Domus AUGUSTI felix TE luget ademptum, 

Nam sibi devinctum vix habet ilia PAEEM. 
Libera Gens BATAVUMjphmgit, CUT, Gloria Secli ! 

NASSOVIUM fuerat non cecinisse Nefas : 
Hospitio excepere suo, post mille Labores 

Sacratos PATRIO, cum PIETATE, Solo. 
L UGD UNI postquam libasset Numinis Arse, 

Tunc redit in PATRIAM, NASSOVIOque Comes, 
Cujus & Auspiciis, ob Res feliciter actas, 

Astrixit PATRIAM, EANAque, TEMPLA sibi. 
Et sub Vexillo REGIS, Labaroque GEOBGI, 

Sustinuit purse RELLIGIONIS Onus. 

D. D. 



INDEX. 



Abjuration Oath of 1711,330,332-3, 

345-8, 349-50, 358 
' Accompt of Scotland's Grievances,' 

37 
Act against Innovations, 316 
for maintaining Unity and 

Peace of the Church, 348 
for settling the Quiet and Peace 

of the Church, 236 

of Classes, 10 

of Securitv, 287, 290 

of 1592, 187 

of 1662, 17 

of 1690, 187-8, 191 

of 1695, 242 • 

Bescissory, 16 

Anne, Queen, 272, 301, 317, 318 

(note), 323, 356 
1 Apologetical Declaration,' 143 
Appeal to House of Lords, First 

Scotch, 319 
Argyll, Marquis of, 16 
— — , Earl of, 58 ; flies to Holland, 

59 ; plotting, 64, 66, 81 ; letter in 

cipher, 82 ; 91, 102 ; expedition of, 

110-11, 140, 144 
, Earl of (son of above), 163, 168, 

252, 261 
, John, Duke of, 257, 286, 289, 

294, 340 
Arran, Earl of, 167, 209, 211, 214, 216 
Atholl, Marquis of, 167, 168, 170 

, Duke of (1713), 349 

Aytoun, Mr. W, E., 145 

Baillie (author of the ' Letters '), 11, 

15, 176, 201 
of Jerviswood, 65, 68, 69, 73, 

78, 101, 104-6, 233 
Bentinck (Earl of Portland), 91, 136- 

182, 225, 231, 260, 261, 271, 289, 

294, 301-2 



Bishops, the Scotch, 161, 170, 178 
Bishops' rents, 289, 313 (note), 356 
Blackwell, Rev. Thomas, 325, 327, 

337, 341 
Boot, torture of the, 77, 79, 80, 94 
Both well Brig, battle of, 49 
Boyd, Zachary, 7, 12 
Breadalbane, Earl of, 170, 217, 218, 

219, 249, 254 
Burnet (Bishop of Salisbury), 91, 136, 

145, 151, 154, 155-7, 336 

Calamy, Edmund, 212, 305, 307, 308 

-12 
Cameronians, the, 173, 193, 197 
Campbells of Cessnock, 65, 69, 78, 

80, 228, 233 
Canaries, Dr., 211 
Carmichael, Lord, 196, 209, 216, 237, 

059 

Carstares family, 3-4, 26, 210, 232, 
245, 256, 266 

, John, 4 ; marriage, 4 ; minister 

at Glasgow, 4 ; imprisoned by 
Cromwell, 5 ; preaches before 
Cromwell, 7 ; edits Durham, . 9 ; 
among the Protesters, 11; in 1662, 
18 ; joins insurrection of 1666, 20 ; 
in Holland, 21 ; in Edinburgh, 45; 
before the Privy Council, 85 ; at 
Duke of Rothes' death-bed, 85; 
anger with William, 108; death, 
133-4 

— , William, birth, 12 ; at school, 
13 ; at Edinburgh College, 13 ; at 
Utrecht, 25, 26 ; licensed and or- 
dained, 29 ; first political mission, 
30 ; first arrest, 36, 39-43 ; first im- 
prisonment, 46-9; liberated, 51; goes 
to Ireland, 52 ; in London, 52 ; at 
Theobalds', 43 ; marriage, 57 ; re- 
tires to Utrecht, 60, 62 ; engages in 



INDEX. 



the great Whig plot, 64 ; relations 
with Ferguson, 66, 67 ; progress of 
plot, 67-70 ; discovery, 72 ; ar- 
rested, 74 ; in the Tolbooth, 78 ; 
letters thence, 87-9; before the 
Privy Council, 91; tortured, 93; 
capitulates, 96 ; sent to the Castle, 
97 ; his " deposition," 99 ; relation 
to Jerviswood's trial, 103-4 ; tour 
in summer of 1685, 111-127 ; at 
Cleve, 129; mother's death, 129; 
father's death, 134 ; moves to 
Leyden, 135 ; chaplain to Prince 
of Orange, 136 ; call to Glasgow, 
150 ; correspondence with Steuart 
in 1687, 152-5 ; in constant con- 
sultation with William, 155 ; 
crosses to Torbay and lands with 
him, 156-7; farewell to Leyden, 
158 ; adviser of William, on Scotch 
affairs, 160 ; " Hints to the King," 
165 ; appointed royal chaplain, 
174 ; in Ireland with William, 183- 
4; consulted about Revolution 
Settlement, 188-90 ; on patronage, 
193-5 ; in Edinburgh at Assembly 
cf 1690, 197 ; influence with the 
King, 203-4 ; returns to London, 
208 ; interview with widowed 
sister, 210 ; interest in the Univer- 
sities, 213; in Flanders in 1691, 
214-19; Assembly of 1692, 
225; campaign of 1692, 226-7; 
Kilmarnock's ward, 230 ; cam- 
paign of 1693, 231-2; Sir W. 
Paterson's slanders, 232-4 ; Oath of 
Assurance, and midnight interview 
with King, 235-42 ; campaign of 
1694, 245 ; Secretary Johnston, 
255 ; Darien, 256 ; sick in Hol- 
land in 1697, 258 ; in Scotland in 
1698, 260 ; in connection with 
Darien, in 1700, 263 ; at King's 
death, 270-1 ; continued as royal 
chaplain, 272 ; principal of Edin- 
burgh University, 273 ; goes to 
Edinburgh, 276 ; salary, and in- 
stallation, 277 ; appointed a mini- 
ster of the town, 278 ; his lectures, 
280 ; plan of a college hall, 281 ; 
as a preacher, 283 ; the Union, 
287 ; his policy in relation to it, 
290-1; member of General As- 
sembly, 292 ; moderator, 293 ; 



characteristics as member of Church 
Court, 294 ; objects to " fastings," 
295 ; " circular letters," 298 ; in 
London, and interview with Queen, 
301 ; moderator for second time, 
303 ; Calamy's decree, 305 ; in 
Assembly of 1709, 308 ; fish dinner, 
311 ; kindness to ejected curates 
(Cadell), 313 ; English liturgy in 
Scotland, 316-17 ; on Green shields, 
320; unpopularity in 1710, 320; 
moderator of Assembly of 1711, 
322 ; deputed to London, 325, 
anent the Toleration, 327-30, and 
Abjuration, 332, and patronage, 
334-40 ; at Assembly of 1712, 343 ; 
takes the Abjuration, 347; Assembly 
of 1713, 349 ; private life, 352-3 ; 
observes thanksgiving for peace of 
Utrecht, 354 ; illness in 1713, 
355 ; deputed to London on acces- 
sion of George I., 357 ; King's gift, 
and royal chaplaincy, 359 ; mode- 
rator in 1715, 360-1 ; close of 
Assembly, 362-3 ; last illness and 
death, 364 ; burial, 365. 

Charles II., 22, 61, 70, 72, 79, 108, 
140, 177, 199, 271, 315, 365 

Charteris, Laurence, 58, 175, 235 

Church of Scotland, before the Union, 
286, 296 ; establishment ratified in 
treaty, 297; English jealousy of, 
300; relation to British Govern- 
ment, 324, 367 

Cipher, devised by James Steuart, 81 

Claim of Right, 168, 194 

Claverhouse, 44, 90, 144 

Cleve, 124, 129, 130, 132 

Cockburn of Ormiston, 228, 261, 
262, 276 

Commission of Assembly; of 1690, 
197-8, 212, 216; during Union 
negotiations, 296 ; letter to Pres- 
bytery of Hamilton, 298 ; of 1713, 
"seasonable warning," 351; on 
accession of George I., 357 

Commonwealth, ten years of, 9, 250 

Confession of Faith, 191, 199, 212, 
235, 297 

Conventicles, 33, 147 

Convention, the, 167-8, 173, 174 

Coronation Oath, 296-7 

Covenant burnt, 16 ; Act against, 
144; 173, 192,197,287 



INDEX. 



383 



Crawford, Earl of, 172, 174, 175, 179, 

186, 212, 213, 287 
Cunningham, Alexander, 257 
, Gabriel, 31, 184, 196 

DALRYMPLE,Sir John (Master of Stair), 
147, 149, 156, 167, 168, 172, 174, 
212, 219-21, 237, 238, 246, 247, 
249 (Earl of Stair), 286, 289. 

Dalzell, General Thomas, 44, 45, 
51, 80, 81, 90, 94 

Darien Scheme, 249-52, 256, 258, 
263, 269, 286 

Directory of Public Worship, 191 

Drumclog, skirmish at, 49 

Drummond, of Lundin (Earl of Mel- 
fort), 49 

Dundee, Yiscount, 168, 169-171, 185, 
367 

Dunlop, Alexander, minister of Pais- 
ley, 54 

, William, 54, 55 ; married to 

Sarah Carstares, 56 ; plotting, 65, 
101; return to Scotland, 179; 
Principal of Glasgow, 180 ; Ross, 
181; 225, 227, 230, 232, 248; 
death, 264 

, Alexander (son of above), 

305, 307, 352 

•, Mrs. (Sarah Carstares), 54, 

129, 132-3, 135, 256, 264, 268, 352 

Dunnotter, 145 

Durham, colleague and brother-in-law 
of John Carstares, 7, 9, 12 

Ejection of curates after Revolution, 
174-5 

Episcopacy, restored, 16 ; Scotch 
feeling towards, 148 ; fate of, 164 ; 
voted a grievance, 171-3 ; character 
of, 243-4 

Episcopal party in Scotland, 149, 
165, 176, 177, 199, 211, 224 ; con- 
forming Episcopal ministers, 1694, 
242; Jacobitism of Episcopalians, 
243-4, 287; relation to English 
liturgy, 318 ; power in the North, 
324 ; Abjuration, 346 

Fagel, 29, 91, 154 

Ferguson, " the plotter," 63, 64, 66, 

70-2 104, 180 
- Fletcher of Saltoun, 58, 59, 65, 102, 

163, 286, 287, 290 



" Form of nrocess," 292 
Formula of 1711, 324 

General Assembly, not summoned, 
186 ; of 1690, 196 ; of 1692, 222, 
225, 226, 235 ; of 1694, 237, 241, 
248; influence of, 291; of 1705, 
292 ; of 1706 and 1707, 294, 302 ; 
of 1708, 302-3 ; of 1709, 308 ; 
Cal amy's account of, 309-10 ; of 
1710, 320 ; of 1711, 322 ; of 1712, 
343 ; of 1713, 348 ; of 1715, 360-2 

Glencoe, 219-21, 246, 249 

Gordon of Earlston, 79, 80 

Greeushields, James, 316-20, 321 

Hamilton, Duke of, 85, 93, 147, 167, 

171, 174, 175, 191, 211,216, 228-9, 

246 
, Duke of, son of above, and 

formerly Earl of Arran, 273, 276 
Hanover, House of, 323, 344 ; Elector 

of, 351, 356 
Harley (Earl of Oxford), 287, 289, 

298, 321, 325, 334, 336, 343, 349, 

358 
Hart, James, colleague of Carstares, 

282, 357-8 
Hepburn, fanatic minister, 78, 234, 

293 
" Highland Host," 45 
Holland (refugees in, 24, 25 ;), 60 ; 

(Church of, 28), 109,110, 129, 149, 

196, 215, 245, 250, 268 
Hume, Sir Patrick (Earl of March- 

mont), 60, 163 

Indulgence (English), Declaration of, 
of 1672, 53 ; of 1688, 142 

Indulgences of 1669 and 1672, 32 ; of 
1687, 147, 149 

Indulged clergy, 33, 174 

Jacobites, 199, 212 ; at Anne's acces- 
sion, 273 ; during Union negotia- 
tions, 296 ; in 1711, 327 ; at Anne's 
death, 356 

James VII., 108, 116, 136 ; accession, 
138 ; dispensing power, 139-40 ; 
his measures of toleration, 142 ; 
Indulgence of 1687, 147, 148; his 
part in Steuart's correspondence, 
152-5 ; 161, 233, 243, 315 

Johnston, Secretary, 248, 249 254-5 



384 



INDEX. 



Jurants and Non-jurants, 348, 35(5 

Kekewich family, 57 

Ker and Strachan Remonstrance, 5, 

14 
Killiecrankie, 171 

Landen, battle of, 231 

Lauderdale, Duke of, 32, 33, 37, 42, 

45, 90, 204, 205 
Leighton, Archbishop, 34; his plan 

of " accommodation," 35, 37 ; 50 
Leyden, 135, 136, 156, 158, 278 
Liturgy, in Church of Scotland, 177, 

315 
Limerick, siege of, 183 
Lockhart of Carnwath, 321, 329-30, 

347 

Mackenzie, Sir George, Lord Advo- 
cate, 90, 103-5, 106, 147, 148, 
365 

Macky, author of u secret services," 2, 
204 255 

Marchmont, Earl of, 267, 276, 297 
(note), 298 

Ear, Earl of, 289, 302 

Maxwell, Sir John, of Pollok, 262, 
264, 268 

Melfort, Earl of, 74, 89, 95, 108-9, 
147, 154, 170, 234 

Melville, Earl of, 60, 69, 163, 174, 
182, 188, 193-5, 209, 228-9, 252 

Moderate party in Church, 223. 304 

Monmouth, Duke of, 50, 63, 64, 69, 
73, 91, 110-11, 140 

Montgomerie, Sir James, 168, 181, 
182, 193 

Nairn, Sir David, 301 
Namur, siege of, 247 
Napier, Mr. Mark, last of the Cava- 
liers, 44, 146, 170 
Non-jurors, 346 

Oath of Abjuration, 330, 332-3, 
345-8, 349-50, 358 

of Assurance, 236, 237 

Ogilvie, Sir James (Earl of Seafield), 

'253 
Oxford, decree of University of, 61 

Paterson, Bishop, 85, 90, 233 
. t Sir William, 13, 90, 233 



Patronage, 193, 194; (abolished by 
Melville, 195,) 322, 327; Act of 
1712, 334-40, 349-350, 358 

Payne, Neville, 180, 182 

Penn, William, 150, 151 

Perth, Earl of, Lord Chancellor, 89, 
93, 103, 106, 147, 174 

Portland, see Bentinck 

Presbyterians, extreme party of, in 
James's reign, 143 ; sufferings of, 
144 ; indulgence to, 147, 149 ; at 
the Pievolution, 162 ; re-establish- 
ment of Presbyterian Church, 187, 
197-9,- 201-2, 229; satisfaction 
with William in 1694, 241-2; at 
Anne's accession, 273 ; after Union, 
316 ; English liturgy, 318 ; aver- 
sion to Abjuration Oath, 331 ; zeal 
for Hanoverian succession, 344 

Privy Council of Scotland, 90, 105, 
147, 174, 324 

" Protesters," 10, 14, 16, 196 

Queensberry, Duke of, 93, 103, 106, 

147, 167, 233-4 
, Duke of (son of above), 254, 

267, 286, 289, 301 

" Reformed Presbyterians," 346 
Renwick, the Cameronian, 143, 172 
" Resolu doners," 10, 15 
Revolution of 1688, preparatives, 

152 ; crisis, 157 ; accomplished in 

Scotland, 167-9 
' Revolution Settlement,' 187, 367 
Rose, Bishop, 163-4 
Rotterdam, 24-5, 125, 128, 130, 212, 

231, 232, 365 
Rule, Gilbert, 179, 273 
Rumbald, 70-1, 84 
Russell, William, Lord 63, 67, 69, 73 
Rutherford, Samuel, 4, 11, 25, 202 
Ryehouse Plot, 62, 70-2, 84, 104, 233 
Ryswick, Congress of, 258 

Sacheverell, Dr., 319, 321 
Seafield, Earl of, 261, 276, 289, 294, 

323 
Seven Bishops, the, 142, 161 
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 62, 64 
Sharp, James, 13 ; turns traitor, 15, 

18 ; murdered, 49 
Shepherd, the wine-merchant, 73, 92, 

104 



INDEX. 



385 



Sidney, Algernon, 63, 64, 69, 91 

Sinclair, of Ormiston, 13, 135 

Spence, Argyll's servant, 79, 80, 82, 
88, 97 

Stair, Sir James Dalrymple, Lord, 
58, 60, 102, 147, 163, 167, 172, 
174, 254 

Steuart, James, author of the ' Ac- 
compt,' 37, 39, 60; plotting, 65, 
81, 110, 147-49; Penn and he, 
150 ; letters to Carstares, 152-5, 
167; Lord Advocate, 228, 267, 
276, 292 ; Calamy's visit to, 311 ; 
319, 346 ; death, 353-4, 365 

Stirling, Principal, 268, 274, 292, 
307, 355 

Swift, Dean, 320 

Tarbat, Viscount, 106, 107, 171, 185, 

198, 237, 238, 253, 254 
Test, Scottish, of 1682, 58 
Theobalds, 53, 84 
Thumbkins, torture of, 81 ; applied 

to Spence, 81 ; to Carstares, 93, 

233-4 
Toleration of Scotch Episcopalians, 

322, 325-31,334, 344, 349-50,358 

Union, the, (desired by King William, 
255,) 269, 282, 285 ; clergy's rela- 
tion to it, 290-1 ; provisions in- 
serted in Treaty at instance of 
Church, 297; concluded, 300-1; 
subsequent effects on Church, 315, 
316 ; repeal debated, 356 ; 361, 362, 
367 



Universities of Scotland, 213, 215, 
227, 280, 289, 297 

University of Edinburgh, 276 ; pa- 
tronage of, 277-8, 289 ; squabble 
with Glasgow, 305-7 

Utrecht, 25, 60, 62, 64, 67, 135, 
151, 212, 214 

Peace of, 354 

Walcot, 70-1, 73 

William III., Prince of Orange, 29, 
36, 60, 135, 136, 140; policy in 
1687, 141 ; in 1687 and 1688, 150, 
154 ; Scotch Declaration, 161-2 ; 
interview with Bishop Rose, 164 ; 
offered crown of Scotland, 168; 
views on Church affairs, 186, 189 ; 
on patronage, 193 ; at Congress of 
the Hague, 211 ; campaign of 1691, 
214-19; suggests formula for re- 
ception of Episcopalians, 224 ; cam- 
paign of 1692, 226-7; of 1693, 
231-2 ; Oath of Assurance and 
General Assembly of 1694, 237; 
midnight interview, 239-42 ; death 
of Mary, 245 ; relation to Darien 
disaster and Scotland, 263, 267 ; 
death, 269, 294 

Wodrow the historian, 145, 203; 
293, 320, 323, 337, 358, 364 

Wood, brother-in-law of John Car- 
stares, 18 

York,' Duke of, 57, 59, 66, 70, 108, 
147 



LONDON." PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. 
AND CHARING CROSS. 

2 c 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



ROBERT STORY, OF ROSNEATH : a Memoir, in- 
cluding Passages of Scottish Religious and Ecclesiastical History 
during the Second Quarter of the Present Century. Crown 8vo. 

js. 6d. 

Macmillan and Co. 

CHRIST THE CONSOLER. i2mo. 3* 6d. 

Edmonston and Douglas. 

LIFE AND REMAINS OF ROBERT LEE, D.D. 

2 vols. 8vo. 30i". 

Hurst and Blackett. 



Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London> 
May 1873. 



Macmillan &• Co:s Catalogue of Works 
in the Departments of History, Biography, 
and Travels ; Politics, Political and Social 
Economy, Law, etc.; and Works connected 
with Language. With some short Account, 
or Critical Notice concerning each Book. 

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, and TRAVELS, 

Baker (Sir Samuel W.)— Works by Sir Samuel Baker,. 
M.A., F.R.G.S.:— 

THE ALBERT N'YANZA Great Basin of the Nile, and Explora- 
tion of the Nile Sources. Third and Cheaper Edition. Maps and 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

"Bruce won the source of the Blue Nile ; Speke and Grant won the 
Victoria source of the great White Nile ; and I have been permitted i$ 
succeed in completing the Nile Sources by the discovery of the great 
reservoir of the equatorial waters, the Albert Nyanza, from which the 
river issues as the entire White Nile.'''' — Preface. <( As a Macaulay 
arose among the historians" says the Reader, "so a Baker has arisen 
among the explores." " Char?ningly written;" says the Spectator, 
"full, as might be expected, of incident, and free fro?n that wearisome 
reiteration of useless facts which is the drawback to almost all books of 
African travel." 

THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, and the Sword 
Hunters of the Hamran Arabs. With Maps and Illustration's. 
Fourth and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
A. 2. A 

5,000.5.73. 



2 MACMILLAWS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Sir Samuel Baker here describes twelve months'' exploration, during 
which he examined the rivers that are tributary to the Nile from Abyssinia t 
including the Atbara, Settite, Royan, Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, 
and the Blue Nile. The interest attached to these portions of Africa differs 
entirely from that of the White Nile regions, as the whole of Upper Egypt 
and Abyssinia is capable of development, and is inhabited by races having 
some degree of civilization; while Central Africa is peopled by a race of 
savages, whose future is more problematical. The Times says : "It solves 
finally a geographical riddle which hitherto had been extremely perplexing, 
and it adds much to our information respecting Egyptian Abyssinia and 
the different races that spread over it. It contains, moreover, some notable 
instances of English daring and enterprising skill ; it abounds in ani- 
mated tales of exploits dear to the heart of the British sportsman; and it 
will attract eve7i the least studious reader, as the author tells a story zvell, 
and can describe nature with uncommon power." 

Barante (M. De). — .s^Guizot. 

Baring-Gould (Rev. S., M.A.) — LEGENDS OF OLD 
TESTAMENT CHARACTERS, from the Talmud and other 
sources. By the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A., Author of 
" Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," " The Origin and Develop- 
ment of Religious Belief," " In Exitu Israel," &c. In Two Vols. 
Crown 8ro. 16s. Vol. I. Adam to Abraham. Vol. II. Mel- 
chizedek to Zechariah. 

Air. Baring- Gould 's previous contributions to the History of Mythology 
and the formation of a science of comparative religion are admitted to be 
of high importance; the present work, it is believed, will be found to 
be of equal value. He has collected from the Talmud and other sources, 
Jewish and Mohajnmedan, a large number of curious and interesting 
legends concerning the principal characters of the Old Testament, com- 
paring these frequently with similar legends current among many of the 
peoples, savage and civilized, all over the world. ' ' These volumes contain 
muck that is very strange, and, to the ordinary English reader, very 
novel." — Daily News. 

Barker (Lady). — See also Belles Lettres Catalogue. 

STATION LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND. By Lady Barker. 
Second and Cheaper Edition. Globe 8vo. y. 6d. 



These letters are the exact account of a lady's experience of the brighter 
and less practical side of colonization. They record the expeditions, ad- 
ventures, and emergencies diversifying the daily life of the wife of a New 
Zealand sheep-farmer ; and, as each was written while the novelty and 
excitement of the scenes it describes were fresh upon her, they may succeed 
in giving he?'e in England an adequate impression of the delight and free- 
do?7i of an existeiice so far removed from our own highly -wrought civiliza- 
tion. "We have never read a more truthful or a pleasanter little book.'''' — 
Athenaeum. 

Bernard, St. — 6V<? Morison. 

Blanford (W. T.)— GEOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY OF 
ABYSSINIA. By W. T. Blanford. 8vo. i\s. 

This work contains an accoimt of the Geological and Zoological 
Observations made by the author in Abyssinia, when accompanying the 
British Army 011 its march to Magdala and back in 1868, and during a 
short journey in Northern Abyssinia, after the defarhire of the troops. 
Parti. Personal Narrative; Part II. Geology; Part III. Zoology. 
With Coloured Illustrations and Geological Map. "The result of his 
labours, the Academy says, "is an important contribution to the 
natural history of the country." 

Bryce. — THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. By James Bryce, 
D.C.L., Regius Professor of Civil Law, Oxford. New and Re- 
vised Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 

The object of this treatise is not so much to give a narrative history of 
the countries included in the Romano- Germanic Empire — Italy during the 
Middle Ages, Germany from theninth century to the nineteenth — as to describe 
the Holy Empire itself as an institution or system, the wonderful offspring 
of a body of beliefs and traditions which have almost wholly passed away 
from the world. To make such a description intelligible it has appeared 
best to give the book the form rather of a narrative than of a dissertation ; 
and to combine with an exposition of what may be called the theory of the 
Empire an outline of the political history of Gerjiiany, as well as some 
notice of the affairs of mediceval Italy. Nothing else so directly linked the 
eld world to the new as thePoman Empire, which exercised over the minds of 
men an influejice such as its material strength could never have commanded. 
It is of this influence, and the causes that gave it power, that the present 
work is designed to treat. "It exactly supplies a want : it a fords a key 



4 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

to much which men read of in their books as isolated facts, but of which they 
have hitherto had no connected exposition set before them. We know of no 
writer who has so thoroughly grasped the real naticre of the ?nediceval 
Empire, and its relations alike to earlier and to later times.'''' — Saturday 
Review. 

Burke (Edmund).— See Morley (John). 

Cameos from English History.— ^Yonge (Miss). 

Chatterton. — See Wilson (Daniel). 

Cooper. — ATHENE CANTABRIGIENSES. By Charles 
Henry Cooper, F.S.A., and Thompson Cooper, F.S.A. 
Vol. I. 8vo., 1500—85, i&r. ; Vol. IL, 1586— 1609, i8.r. 

This elaborate work, which is dedicated by permission to Lord Macaulay, 
contains lives of the eminent men sent forth by Cambridge, after the 
fashion of Anthony a Wood, in his famous " Athence Oxonienses." 

COX (G. V., M. A.)— RECOLLECTIONS OF OXFORD. 
By G. V. Cox, M.A., New College, late Esquire Bedel and 
Coroner in the University of Oxford. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 
6s. 

"An amusing farrago of anecdote, and will pleasantly recall in many 
a country parsonage the memory of youthful days." — Times. " Those 
who wish to make acquaintance with the Oxford of their grandfathers, 
and to keep up the intercourse with Alma Mater during their father 's time, 
even to the latest novelties in fashion or learning of the present day, will do 
well to procure this pleasant, unpretending little volume." — Atlas. 

" Daily News."— the daily news correspond- 
ence of the War between Germany and France, 1870— 1. Edited 
with Notes and Comments. New Edition. Complete in One 
Volume. With Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

This Correspondence has been translated into German. In a Preface 

the Editor says:— 

"Among the various pictures, recitals, and descriptions which have 

appeared, both of our gloriously ended national war as a whole, and of its 

s:veral episodes, we think that in laying before the German public, through 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, & TRAVELS. 



a translation, the following War Letters 'Which appeared first in the Daily 
News, and were afterwards published collectively, we are offering them a 
■picture of the events of the war of a quite peculiar character. These com- 
munications have the advantage of being at once entertaining and instruc- 
tive, free from every romantic embellishment, and nevertheless written 
in a vein intelligible and not fatiguing to the general reader. The writers 
linger over events, and do not disdain to surround the great and heroic 
war-pictures with arabesques, gay and grave, taken from camp-life and 
the life of the inhabitants of the occupied territory. A feature which 
distinguishes these Letters from all other delineations of the war is that they 
do not proceed from a single pen, but zuere written from the camps of both 
belligerents.'''' " These notes and comments" according to the SATURDAY 
Review, " are in reality a very well executed and continuous history.'''' 

Dilke.— GREATER BRITAIN.* A Record of Travel in English- 
speaking Countries during 1866-7. (America, Australia, India.) 
By Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, M. P. Sixth Edition. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. __^_ 

" Mr. Dilke,'" says the Saturday Review, " has written a book which 
is probably as well worth reading as any book of the same aims and 
character that ever was written. Its merits are that it is written in a 
lively and agreeable style, that it implies a great deal of physical pluck, 
that no page of it fails to show an acute and highly intelligent observer, 
that it stimulates the imagination as well as the judgment of the reader, 
and that t it is on perhaps the most interesting subject that can attract an 
Englishman who cares about his country.' 1 '' " Many of the subjects dis- 
cussed in these pages," says the Daily News, "are of the widest interest, 
and such as no man who cares for the future of his race and of the world 
can afford to treat with indifference. ' 

Diirer (Albrecht). — HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF AL- 

BRECHT DURER, of Nurnberg. With a Translation of his 
Letters and Journal, and some account of his Works. By Mrs. 
Charles Heaton. Royal 8vo. bevelled boards, extra gilt. 3IJ. 6d. 

This work contains about Thirty Illustrations, ten of which are produc- 
tions by the Autotype (carbon) process, and are printed in permanent tints 
by Messrs. Cundall and Fleming, under licence from the Autotype Com- 
pany, Limited; the rest are Photographs and Woodcuts. 



6 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

Elliott. — LIFE OF HENRY VENN ELLIOTT, of Brighton. 
By Josiah Bateman, M.A., Author of "Life of Daniel Wilson, 
Bishop of Calcutta," &c. With Portrait, engraved by Jeens. 
Extra fcap. 8vo. Third and Cheaper Edition, with Appendix. 6s. 

11 A very charming piece of religious biography ; no one can read it 
'without both pleasure and prof t."— British Quarterly Review. 

European History, Narrated in a Series of Historical 
Selections from the best Authorities. Edited and arranged by 
E. M. Sewell and C. M. Yonge. First Series, crown 8vo. 6s. ; 
Second Series, 1088-1228, crown 8vo. 6s. Second Edition. 

When young children have acquired the outlines of history from abridg- 
ments and catechisms, and it becomes desirable to give a more enlarged 
view of the subject, in order to render it really useful and interesting, a 
difficulty often arises as to the choice of books. Tzuo courses are open, either 
to take a general and consequently dry history of facts, such as RusselVs 
Modern Europe, or to choose some work treating of a particular period or 
subject, such as the works of Macaulay and Froude. The former cours; 
usually renders history uninteresting ; the latter is unsatisfactory, because 
it is not sufficiently co7?iprehensive. To remedy this difficulty, selections, 
continuous and chronological, have in the present volume been taken from 
the larger works of Free77ian, Milman, Palgrave, Lingard, Hume, and 
others, which may serve as distinct landmarks of historical reading, 
" We know of scarcely anything," says the Guardian, of this volume, 
"which is so likely to raise to a higher level the average standard of English 
education.'''' 

Fairfax (Lord). — A LIFE OF THE GREAT LORD FAIR- 
FAX, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Parliament of 
England. By Clements R. Markham, F.S.A. With Portraits, 
Maps, Plans, and Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 16s. 

No full Life of the great Parliamentary Commander has appeared ; 
and it is here sought to p)'oduce one — based upon careful research in con- 
temporary records and upon family and other documents. " Highly 
useful to the careful student of the History of the Civil War. . . . Pro- 



HISTORY BIOGRAPHY, &- TRAVELS. 7 

bably as a military chro?iicle Mr. Markham's book is one of the most full 
and accurate that we possess about the Civil War." — Fortnightly 
Review. 

Faraday. — MICHAEL FARADAY. By J. H. Gladstone, 
Ph.D., F. R. S. Second Edition, with Portrait engraved by Jeens 
from a photograph by J. Watkins. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6a 7 . 

Contents :— I. The Story of his Life. II. Study of his Character. 
III. Fruits of his Experience. IV. His Method of Working. V. The 
Value of his Discoveries. — Supplementary Portraits. Appendices : — List 
ef Honorary Fellowships, etc. 

" Faraday needed a popular biography. A man so simple and so pure, 
as well as so strong in intellect, so absolutely devoted to science for its own 
sake alone, so utterly indifferent to wealth and social distinction, so keen 
in his appreciation of the hard facts of sensation, and yet so permeated with 
a sense of the supra-sensual and spiritual, ought to be widely and familiarly 
known to the world at large ; and Dr. Gladstone 's book is excellently 
adapted to this result, ," — GUARDIAN. ) 

Field (E. W.)— EDWIN WILKINS FIELD. A Memorial 

Sketch. By Thomas Sadler, Ph. D. With a Portrait. Crown 

Svo. 4.S. 6d. 

Mr. Field was well known during his life-time not only as an e??iinent 

lawyer and a strenuous and successful advocate of law reform, but, both 

iii England and America, as a man of wide and thorough culture, varied 

tastes, large-heartedness, and lofty aims. His sudden death was looked 

upon as a public loss, and it is expected that this brief Memoir will be 

acceptable to a large number besides the many friends at whose request 

it has been written. 

Forbes.— LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES DAVID 
FORBES, F.R.S., late Principal of the United College in the 
University of St. Andrews. By J. C. Shairp, LL.D., Principal 
of the United College in the University of St. Andrews ; P. G. 
Tait, M.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University 
of Edinburgh; and A. Adams-Reilly, F.R.G.S. 8vo. with 
Portraits, Map, and Illustrations, 16s. 
" Not only a biography thaf all should read, but a scientific treatise, 
without which the shelves of no physicists library can be deemed com- 
plete"— Standard. 



8 MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Freeman. — Works by Edward A. Freeman, M.A., D.C.L. :— 

' ' That special power over a subject which conscientious and patient 

research can only achieve, a strong grasp of facts, a true mastery over 

detail, with a clear and manly style — all these qualities join to make 

■the Historian of the Conquest conspicuous in the intellectual arena" — 

Academy. 

HISTORY OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, from the Foun- 
dation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United 
States. Vol. I. General Introduction, History of the Greek 
Federations. 8vo. i\s. 

Mr. FreemaiUs aim, in this elaborate and valuable work, is not so 
much to discuss the abstract nature of Federal Government, as to exhibit 
its actual working in ages and countries widely removed from one another. 
Four Federal Coiiimonzvealths stand out, in four different ages of the world, 
as commanding above all others the attention of stude7its of political history, 
viz. the Achaian League, the Swiss Cantons, the United Provinces, the 
United States. The first volume, besides containing a General Introdtic- 
' tion, treats of the first of these. In writing this volume the author has 
-endeavoured to co??ibine a text which may be instructive and interesting to 
any thoughtful reader, whether specially learned or not, with notes which 
may satisfy the requirements of the most exacting scholar. u The task 
Mr. Freeman has undertaken ," the Saturday Review says, "is one 
of great magnitude and importance. It is also a task of an almost 
entirely novel character. No other work professing to give the history of 
a political principle occurs to us, except the slight contributions to the 
history of representative government that is contained in a course of 
M. Guizot' 's lectures .... The history of the development of a principle 
is at least as important as the history of a dynasty, or of a race." 

OLD ENGLISH HISTORY. With Five Coloured Maps. Second 
Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo., half-bound. 6s. 

"Its object," the Preface says, "is to show that clear, accurate, and 
scientific views of history, or indeed of any subject, may be easily given to 
children from the very first. . . . I have throughout striven to connect the 
history of England with the general history of civilized Europe, and I have 
especially tried to make the book serve as an incentive to a more accurate 
study of historic geography. " The rapid sale of the first edition and the 
universal approval with zvhich the work has been received prove the correct- 
ness of the author's notions, and show that for such a book there was ample 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS, 



Freeman (E. A,)— continued. 

room. The work is suited not only Tor children, but zuill serve as an 
excellent text-boolz for older students, a clear and faithful summary of the 
history of the period for those who wish to revive their historical know- 
ledge, and a book full of charms for the general reader. The work is 
preceded by a complete chronological Table, and appended is an exhaustive 
and useful Index. In the present edition the whole has been carefully revised, 
and such improvements as suggested themselves have been introduced. 
" The book indeed is full oj instruction and interest to students of all 
ages, and he must be a well-injormed man indeed who will not rise from 
its perusal with clearer and mere accurate ideas of a too much neglected 
portion of English history." — Spectator. 

HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS, 

as illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old 

Foundation. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
" / have here," the author says, "tried to treat the history of the 
Church of Wells as a contribution to the general history of the Church 
and Kingdom of England, and specially to the history of Cathedral 
Churches of the Old Foundation. . . . I wish to point out the general 
principles of the original founders as the model to which the Old Foun- 
dations should be brought back, and the New Foundations reformed after 
their pattern.'" " The history assumes in Mr. Freeman's hands a signi- 
ficance, and, we may add, a practical value as suggestive of what a cathe- 
dral ought to be, which make it well worthy of mention." — Spectator. 

HISTORICAL ESSAYS. Second Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

The principle on which these Essays have been chosen is that 
of selecting papers which refer to comparatively modern times, or, at 
least, to the existing states and nations of Europe. By a sort of accident 
a number of the pieces chosen have thrown themselves into something like 
a continuous series bearing on the historical causes of the great events of 
1870 — 71. Notes have been added whenever they seemed to be called for ; 
and whenever he could gain in accuracy of statement or in force or clear- 
ness of expression, the author has Jreely changed, added to, or left out, 
what he originally wrote. To many of the Essays has been added a short 
note of the circumstances under zvhich they wei'e written. It is ?ieedless to 
say that any product of Mr. Freeman' 's pen is worthy 0/ attentive perusal ; 
and it is believed that the contents of this volu?ne will throw light on 
several subjects of great historical importance and the widest interest. 



io MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Freeman (E. A.) — continued. 

The following is a list of the subjects: — I. The Mythical and Romantic 
Elements in Early English History; 2. The Continuity of English 
History ; 3 . The Relations between the Crowns of England and Scotland ; 
4. Saint Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers ; 5. The Reign of 
Edward the Third ; 6. The Holy Roman Empire ; 7. The Franks and 
the Gauls ; 8. The Early Sieges of Paris ; 9. Frederick the First, King 
of Italy ; 1 o. The Emperor Frederick the Second ; 1 1 . Charles the Bold ; 
12. Presidential Government. "He never touches a question without 
adding to our comprehension of it, without leaving the impression of an 
am-ble knowledge, a righteous purpose, a clear and powerful under- 
standing. " — Saturday Review. 

A SECOND SERIES OF HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 8vo. 
\os. 6d. 

These Essays chiefly 7'elate to earlier periods of history than those 
which zuere dealt 'with in the former volume — to the times commonly known 
as t( Ancient " or " Classical." All the papers have hen carefully revised, 
and the author has found himself able to do very much in the way of 
improving and simplifying the style. The Essays are: — "Ancient 
Greece and Mediceval Italy : " "Mr. Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric 
Ages :" " The Historians of Athens:" " The Athenian Democracy :" 
"Alexander the Great:" "Greece during the Macedonian Period:" 
il Mommsen's History of Rome:" "Lucius Cornelius Sulla:" "The 
Flavian Casars." 

THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION 
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. Crown Svo. $s. Second 
Edition, revised. 
The three Chapters of which this work consists are an expansion of two 
Lectures delivered by Mr. Freeman ; appended are copious notes, the whole 
book forming a graphic and interesting sketch of the history of the British 
Constitution, from an original point of view. The author shows that the 
characteristic elements of the British Constitution are common to the whole 
of the Aryan nations. His "object has been to show that the earliest 
institutions of England and of other Teutonic lands are not mere matters 
of curious speculation, but mattei's closely connected with our present politi- 
cal being. I wish it show" he says, "that, in many things, our earliest 
institutions come more nearly home to us, and that they have more in common 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &- TRAVELS. n 

Freeman (E. A.) — continued. 

with our present political state, than the institutions of intermediate ages 
■which at first sight seem to have much more in commoii with our own." 
He attempts to shew that '■'•freedom is everywhere older than bondage," 
"toleration tha?i intolerance" 

THE UNITY OF HISTORY. The "Rede" Lecture 
delivered in the Senate House, before the University of Cam- 
bridge, on Friday, May 24th, 1872. Crown 8vo. 2s. 

GENERAL SKETCH OF EUROPEAN HISTORY. Being 
Vol. I. of a Historical Course for Schools edited by E. A. 
Freeman. i8mo. $s. 6d. Second Edition. 

The present volume is meant to be introductory to the whole course. It 
is intended to give, as its name implies, a general sketch of the history of 
the civilized world, that is, of Europe, and of the lands which have drawn 
their civilization from Europe. Its object is to trace out the general rela- 
tions of different periods and different countries to one another, without 
going minutely into the affairs of any particular country. This is an 
object of the first importance, for, without clear notions of general history, 
the history of particular countries can never be rightly understood. The 
narrative extends from the earliest movements of the Aryan peoples, down 
to the latest events both on the Eastern and Western Continents. The 
book consists of seventeen moderately sized chapters, each chapter being 
divided into a number of short numbered paragraphs, each with a title 
prefixed clearly indicative of the subject of the paragraph. "It supplies 
the great want of a good fotindation for historical teaching. The scheme 
is an excellent one, and this instalment has been executed in a way that 
promises much for the volumes that are yet to appear." — Educational 
Times. 

Galileo. — THE PRIVATE LIFE OF GALILEO. Compiled 

principally from his Correspondence and that of his eldest 
daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, Nun in the Franciscan Convent of 
S. Matthew in Arcetri. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. *js. 6d. 

It has been the endeavour of the compiler to place before the reader a 
plain, ungarbled statement of facts ; and, as a means to this end, to allow 
Galileo, his friends, and his judges to speak for themselves as far as possible. 
All the best authorities have been made use of, and all the materials which 



12 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

exist for a biography have been in this volume put into a sym?netrical form. 
The result is a most touching picture skilfully arranged of the great heroic 
man of science and his devoted daughter, whose letters are full of the deepest 
reverential love and trust, amply repaid by the noble soul. The Satur- 
day Review says of the book, " It is not so much the philosopher as the 
man who is seen in this simple and life-like sketch, and the hand which 
portrays the features and actions is mainly that of one who had studied the 
sicbject the closest and the most intimately. This little volume has done 
much within its slender compass to prove the depth and tenderness of 
Galileo's heart. 1 '' 

Gladstone (Right Hon. W. E., M.P.) — JUVENTUS 

MUNDI. The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. With Map. 10s. 6d. Second Edition. 

This work of Mr. Gladstone deals especially with the historic element 
in Homer, expounding that element and furnishing by its aid a full 
account of the Homeric men and the Homeric religion. It starts, after 
the introductory chapter, with a discussion of the several races then existing 
in Hellas, including the influence of the Phoenicians and Egyptians. It 
contains chapters on the Olympian sy 'stem, with its several deities ; on the 
Ethics and the Polity of the Heroic age ; on the Geography of Homer ; on 
the characters of the Poems ; presenting, in fine, a view of primitive life 
and pri7nitive society as found in the poems of Homer. To this New 
Edition various additions have been tnade. " Seldom,'''' says the Athe- 
N^EUM, " out of the great poems themselves, have these Divinities looked 
so majestic and respectable. To read these brilliant details is like standing 
on the Olympian threshold and gazing at the ineffable brightness within.'''' 
" There is," according to the Westminster Review, "probably no other 
writer now living who could have done the work of this book. . . It would 
be difficult to point out a book that contains so much fulness of knowledge 
along with so much freshness of perception and clearness of presentation.'''' 

Goethe and Mendelssohn (1821— 1831). From the 
German of Dr. Karl Mendelssohn, Son of the Composer, by 
M. E. Von Glehn. From the Private Diaries and Home- 
Letters of Mendelssohn, with Poems and Letters of Goethe never 
before printed. Also with two New and Original Portraits, Fac- 
similes, and Appendix of Twenty Letters hitherto unpublished. 
Crown 8vo. 5^. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &- TRAVELS. 13 

This little volit?ne is full of interesting details about Mendelssohn from 
his twelfth year onwards, and especially of his intimate and frequent in- 
tercourse zvith Goethe. It is an episode of Wiemar' 's golden days which we 
see before us — old age and fame hand in hand with youth in its aspiring 
efforts ; the aged poet fondling the curls of the little musician and calling 
to him in playful and endearing accents ' ' to make a little noise for him, 
and awaken the winged spirits that have so long lain slumbering" Here 
will be found letters and reports of conversations between the two, touching 
on all subjects, human and divine — Music, Aesthetics, Art, Poetry, Science, 
Morals, and " the profound and ancient problem of human life," as well 
as reminiscences of celebrated men zvith whom the great composer came in 
contact. The letters appended give, among other matters, some interesting- 
glimpses into the private life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the late 
Prince Albert. The two zvell-executed engravings shozv Mendelssohn as a 
beautiful boy of twelve years. 

GuizOt. — M. DE BARANTE, a Memoir, Biographical and Auto- 
biographical. By M. Guizot. Translated by the Author of 
"John Halifax, Gentleman." Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
' ' It is scarcely necessary to write a preface to this book. Its lifelike, 
portrait of a true and great man, painted unconsciously by himself in his 
letters and autobiography, and retouched and completed by the tender hand 
of his surviving friend — the friend of a lifeti?ne — is sure, I think, to be 
appreciated in England as it was in France, where it appeared in the 
Revue de Deux Mondes. Also, I believe every thoughtful mind will 
enjoy its clear reflections of French and European politics and history for 
the last seventy years, and the curious light thus thrown upon many present 
events and combinations of circumstances." — Preface. "The highest 
purposes of both history and biography are answered by a memoir so life- 
like, so faithful, and so philosophical '." — British Quarterly Review. 
" This eloquent memoir, which for te?iderness, gracefulness, and vigour, 
might be placed on the same shelf with Tacitus' Life of Agricola. . . . Mrs. 
Craik has rendered the language of Guizot in her ozun szveet translucent 
English."— Daily News. 

Hole.— A GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE KINGS 
OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By the Rev. C. Hole, 
M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. On Sheet, is. 
The different families are printed in distinguishing colours, thus facili- 
tating referejice. 



14 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Hozier (H. M.) — Works by Captain Henry M. Hozier, 
late Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Napier of Magdala. 

THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR ; Its Antecedents and Incidents. 
New and Cheaper Edition. With New Preface, Maps, and Plans. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 

This account of the brief but momentous Austro- Prussian War ofiS66 
claims Consideration as being the product of an eye-witness of some of its 
most interesting incidents. The author has attempted to ascertain and 
is advance facts. Two maps are given, 07ie illustrating the opera- 
tions of the Army of the Maine, and the other the operations from 
Kbniggrdtz. In the Prefatory Chapter to this edition, events resulting 
from the war of 1866 are set forth, and the current of European history 
traced down to the recent Franco-Prussian war, a natural consequence 
of the war whose history is narrated in this volume. "Mr. Hozier 
added to the knowledge of military operations and of languages, which 
he had proved himself to possess, a ready and skilful pen, and ex- 
cellent faculties of observation and description. ... All that Mr. 
Hozier saw of the great events of the war — and he saw a large share 
§f them — he describes in clear and vivid language." — Saturday 
Review. "Mr. Hozier 's volumes deserve to take a permanent place 
in the literature of the Seven Weeks' War. " — Pall Mall Gazette. 

THE BRITISH EXPEDITION TO ABYSSINIA. Compiled 
from Authentic Documents. 8vo. gs. 

Several accounts of the British Expedition have been published. 
They have, however, been written by those who have not had access to those 
authentic documents, which cannot be collected directly after the termination 
tf a campaign.. The endeavour of the author 0/ this sketch has been to 
present to readers a succinct and impartial account of an enterprise which 
has rarely been equalled in the annals of war. " This," says the 
Spectator, "will be the account of the Abyssinian Expedition for 
professional reference, if not for professional reading. Its literary 
merits are really very great. " 

THE INVASIONS OF ENGLAND. A History of the Past, 

with Lessons for the Future. [In the press. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &° TRAVELS. 15 

Hughes. — MEMOIR OF A BROTHER. By Thomas Hughes, 
M.P., Author of " Tom Brown's School Days." With Portrait of 
George Hughes, after Watts. Engraved by Jeens. Crown 
8vo. $s. Fourth Edition. 

" The boy who can read this book without deriving from it some addi- 
tional impulse towards honourable, manly, and independent conduct, has 
no good stuff in him. . . . While boys at school may be bewildered by 
various conflicting theories of the characters of the great Englishmen whom 
they have been taught to admire or to hate, here, in the guise of the simplest 
and the most modest of country gentlemen, they may find an exemplar 
which they cannot do better than copy."'' — Daily News. 

' ' JVe have read it with the deepest gratification and with real admi- 
ration. " — Standard. 

tl The biography throughout is replete with interest." — MORNING 
Post. 

Huyshe (Captain G. L.)— THE RED RIVER EXPE- 
DITION. By Captain G. L. Huyshe, Rifle Brigade, late on 
the Staff of Colonel Sir Garnet Wolseley. With Maps. 8vo. 
ioj-. 6d. 

This account has been written in the hope of directing attention 
to the successful accomplishment of an expedition which was attended with 
more than ordinary difficulties. The author has had access to the official 
documents of the Expedition, and has also availed himself of the reports on 
the line of route published by Mr. Dawson, C.E., and by the Typogra- 
phical Department of the War Office. The statements made may therefore 
be relied on as accurate and impartial. The endeavour has been made to 
avoid tiring the general reader with dry details of military movements, and 
yet not to sacrifice the character of the work as an account of a military 
expedition. The volume contains a portrait of President Louis Riel, and 
Maps of the route. The Athenaeum calls it " an enduring authentic 
record of one of the most creditable achievements ever accomplished by the 
British Army." 

Irving.— THE ANNALS OF OUR TIME. A Diurnal of Events, 
Social and Political, Home and Foreign, from the Accession' of 
Queen Victoria to the Peace of Versailles. By Joseph Irving. 
Third Edition. 8vo. fcalf-bound. 16s. 



16 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Every occurrence, metropolitan or provincial, home or foreign, which 
gave rise to public excitement or discussion, or became the starting point for 
new trains of thought affecting our social life, has been judged proper matter 
for this volume. In the proceedings of Parliament, an endeavour has 
been made to notice all those Debates which were either rei?iarkable as 
affecting the fate of parties, or led to important changes in our relations 
with Foreign Powers. Brief notices have been given of the death of all 
noteworthy persons. Though the events are set down day by day in their 
order of occurrence, the book is, in its way, the history of an important 
and well-defined historic cycle. In these "Annals,'''' the ordinary reader 
may make himself acquainted with the history of his own time in a way 
that has at least the merit of simplicity and readiness ; the more cultivated 
student will doubtless be thankful for the opportunity given him of passing 
down the historic stream undisturbed by any other theoretical or party 
feeling than what he himself has at hand to explain the philosophy of our 
national story. A complete and useful Index is appended. The Table' 
of Administrations is designed to assist the reader in following the various 
political changes noticed in their chronological order in the "Annals.'''' — 
In the new edition all errors and omissions have been rectified, 300 pages 
been added, and as many as 46 occupied by an impartial exhibition of the 
wonderful series of events marking the latter half of 1870. " We 
have before us a trusty and ready guide to the events of the past thirty 
years, available equally for the statesman, the politician, the public 
writer, and the gejteral reader. If Mr. Irving' s object has been to bring 
before the reader all the most noteworthy occurrences which have happened 
since the beginning of her Majesty's reign, he may justly claim the credit 
of having done so most briefly, succinctly, and simply, and in such a 
manner, too, as to furnish him with the details necessary in each case to 
co?nprehend the event of which he is in search in an intelligent manner. ,T 
—Times. 



Kingsley (Charles). — Works by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, 
M.A., Rector of Eversley and Canon of Westminster. (For 
other Works by the same Author, see Theological and Belles 
Lettres Catalogues. ) 

ON THE ANCIEN REGIME as it existed on the Continent before 
the French Revolution. Three Lectures delivered at the 
Royal Institution. Crown 8vo. 6s. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS. 17 



Kingsley (Charles). —continued. 

These three lectures discuss severally (1) Caste, (2) Centralization, (3) 
The Explosive Forces by which the Revolution was superinduced. The 
Preface deals at some le7igth with certain political questions of the present 
day. 



AT LAST : A CHRISTMAS in the WEST INDIES. With nearly 
Fifty Illustrations. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6y,. 

Mr. Kingsley 's dream of forty years was at last fulfilled, when he- 
started on a Christmas expedition to the West Indies, for the purpose of 
becoming personally acquainted with the scenes which he has so vividly 
described in " Westward Ho I" These two volumes are the journal of his 
voyage. Records of natural history, sketches of tropical landscape, chapters 
on education, views of society, all find their place in a work written, so to 
say, under the inspiration of Sir Walter Raleigh and the other adventurous 
me?i who three hundred years ago disputed against Philip II the possession 
of the Spanish Main. ' ' We can only say that Mr. Kingsley' s account of 
a * Christmas in the West Indies ' is in every way worthy to be classed 
among his happiest productions." — STANDARD. 

THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON. A Series of Lectures 
delivered before the University of Cambridge. 8vo. 12s. 

Contents : — Inaugural Lecture ; The Forest Children ; The Dying 
Empire; The Human Dehige ; The Gothic Civilizer ; Dietrich' 1 s End ; The, 
Nemesis of the Goths; Paulus Diaconus ; The Clergy and the Heathen ;■ 
The Monk a Civilizer ; The Lombard laws ; The Popes and the Lombards ; 
The Strategy of Providence. "He has rendered,'''' says the NONCON- 
FORMIST, "good service and shed a new lustre on the chair of Modern 
History at Cambridge .... He has thrown a charm around the work 
by the marvellous fascinations of his own genius, brought out in strong 
relief those great principles of which all history is a revelation, lighted 
up viany dark and almost unknow?i spots, and stimulated the desire to 
understand more thoroughly one of the greatest movements in the story of 
humanity.'" 

PLAYS AND PURITANS, and other Historical Essays. With 
Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh. Crown 8vo. $s. 



IS MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 



Kingsley (Charles). — continued. 

In addition to the Essay mentioned in the title, this volume contains 
other two — one on "Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time" and one on 
Fronde's " History of England," — all three contributed to the North 
British Review. Mr. Kingsley has already shown how intimate is 
his knowledge of the times on which all three essays touch. 

Kingsley (Henry, F.R.G.S.) — For other Works by same 
Author, see Belles Lettres Catalogue. 

TALES OF OLD TRAVEL. Re-narrated by Henry Kingsley, 
F.R.G.S. With Eight Illustrations by Huard. Fourth Edition. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 

In this volume Mr. Henry Kingsley re-narrates, at the same time 
fireservittg much of the quaintness of the original, some of the most fasci- 
nating tales of travel contained in the collections of Hakluyt and others. The 
Contents are — Marco Polo; The Shipwreck of Pelsart; The Wo7iderful 
Adventures of Andrew Battel; The Wanderings of a Capuchin; Peter 
Carder; The Preservation of the ' " 'Terra Nova ;" Spitzbergen; DErme- 
nonville 's Acclimatization Adventure ; The Old Slave Trade ; Miles Philips ; 
The Sufferings of Robert Everard ; John Fox ; Alvaro Nunez ; The Foun- 
dation of an Empire. u We know no better book for those who want 
knowledge or seek to refresh it. As for the ' sensational ',' most novels are 
lame compared with these narratives." — Athenaeum. "Exactly the 
book to interest and to do good to intelligent and high-spirited boys" — 
Literary Churchman. 

Labouchere.— diary of the besieged resident 

IN PARIS. Reprinted from the Daily News, with several New 
Letters and Preface. By Henry Labouchere. Third Edition. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 

** The ' Diary of a Besieged Resident in Paris ' will certainly form one 
of the most remarkable records of a momentous episode in history." — SPEC- 
TATOR. " There is an entire absence of affectation in this writer which 
vastly commends him to us." — Pall Mall Gazette. " On the whole, 
it does not seem likely that the ' besieged ' will be superseded in his self- 
assumed function by any subsequent chronicler." — British Quarterly 
Review. " Very smartly written." — Vanity Fair. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS. 19 

Macmillan (Rev. Hugh). — For other Works by same Author, 

see Theological and Scientific Catalogues. 

HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS ; or, Rambles and Incidents in 
search of Alpine Plants. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. 6s. 

The aim of this book is to impart a general idea of the origin, character, 
and distribution of those rare and beautiful Alpine plants which occur on 
the British hills, and which are fotind almost everywhere on the lofty 
mountain chains of Europe, Asia, Africa, a?id Ayjierica. The informa- 
tion the author has to give is conveyed in untechnical language, in a 
setting of personal adventure, and associated with descriptions of the 
natural scenery and the peculiarities of the human life in the midst of which 
the plants were found. By this method the subject is made interesting to 
a very large class of readers. ' ' Botanical knowledge is blended with a 
love of nature, a pious enthusiasm, and a rich felicity of diction not to be 
met with in any works of kindred character, if we except those of Hugh 
Miller." — Telegraph. "Mr. M.'s gloiving pictures of Scandinavian 
scenery." — Saturday Review. 

Martin (Frederick) — the STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK : 

See p. 42 of this Catalogue. 

Martineau. — biographical sketches, 1852—1868. 

By Harriet Martineau. Third and Cheaper Edition, with 
New Preface. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

A Collection of Memoirs under these several sections: — (1) Royal, (2) 
Politicians, (3) Professional, (4) Scientific, (5) Social, (6) Literary. These 
Memoirs appeared originally in the columns of the Daily News. " Miss 
Martineau 1 s large literary poxvers a?id her fine intellectual training ?nake 
these little sketches more instructive, and constitute them more genuinely 
works of art, than many more ambitious and diffuse biographies." — 
Fortnightly Review. "Each memoir is a complete digest of a 
celebrated life, illuminated by the flood of searching light which streams 
from the gaze of an acute but liberal mind" — Morning Star. 

Masson (David).— For other Works by same Author, see Philo- 
sophical and Belles Lettres Catalogues, 
b 2 



2o MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

Masson (David)— continued. 

LIFE OF JOHN MILTON. Narrated in connection with the 

Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time. By 

David Masson, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and English 

Literature in the University of Edinburgh. Vol. I. with Portraits. 

Svo. iSs. Vol. II., 1638— 1643. 8vo. 16s, Vol. III. in the 

press. 

This work is not only a Biography, but also a continuotis Political, 

Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of England through Milton's whole 

time. In order to understand Milton, his position, his motives, his 

thoughts by himself, his public words to his countrymen, and the probable 

effect of those zvords, it was necessary to refer largely to the History of his 

Time, not only as it is presented in well-known books, but as it had to be 

rediscovered by express a7id laborious investigation in original and forgotten 

records: thus of the Biography, a History grew : not a mere popular 

compilation, but a work of independent search and method fro7n first to 

last, which has cost more labour by far than the Biography. The second 

volume is so arranged that the reader may select or omit either the History 

or Biography. The North British Review, speaking of the first 

volume of this work said, " The Life of Milton is here written once for 

all.'" The NONCONFORMIST, in noticing the second volume, says, "Its 

literary excellence entitles it to take its place in the first ranks of our 

literature, while the whole style of its execution marks it as the only book 

that has done anything like adequate justice to one of the great masters of our 

language, and one of our truest patriots, as well as our greatest epic poet.'''' 

Mayor (J. E. B.)— WORKS Edited By John E. B. Mayor, 
M.A., Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge : — 
CAMBRIDGE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Part II. 

Autobiography of Matthew Robinson. Fcap. 8vo. $s. 6d. 
This is the second of the Memoirs illustrative of " Cambridge in the 
Seventeenth Century-" that of Nicholas Farrar having preceded it. It gives 
a lively picture of England during the Civil Wars the most important 
crisis of our national life; it supplies materials for the history of he 
University and our Endowed Schools, and gives us a view of country 
clergy at a time zuhen they are supposed to have been, with scarce an ex- 
ception, scurrilous sots. Mr. Mayor has added a collection of extracts and 
documents relating to the history of several other Cambridge men of note 
belonging to the same period, all, like Robinson, of Nonconformist leanings. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS. 



Mayor (J. E. B.)_ continued. 

LIFE OF BISHOP BEDELL. By his Sox. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

This is the third of the Memoirs illustrative of" Cambridge in the ijth 
Century. " The life of the Bishop of Kilmore here printed for the first time 
is preserved in the Tanner MSS., and is preliminary to a larger one to be 
issued shortly. 

Mitford (A. B.)— TALES OF OLD JAP AX. By A. B. 

MlTFORD, Second Secretary to the British Legation in Japan. 

With upwards of 30 Illustrations, drawn and cut on "Wood by 

Japanese Artisls. Two Vols, crown 8vo. 21s. 
Under the influence of more enlightened ideas and of a liberal system of 
policy, the old Japanese civilization is fast disappearing, and will, in a 
fezv years, be completely extinct. It zvas important, therefore, to preserve 
as far as possible trustworthy records of a state of society -which, although 
venerable from its antiquity, has for Europeans the dawn of novelty ; 
hence the series of narratives and legends translated by Mr. ?Titford, 
and in which the Japanese are very judiciously left to tell their own tale. 
The two volumes comprise not only stories and episodes illustrative of 
Asiatic superstitions, but also three sermons. The pi'eface, appendices, 
and notes explain a number of local peculiarities ; the thirty-one woodcuts 
are the genuine work of a native artist, who, unconsciously of course, has 
adopted the process first introduced by the early German masters. " These 
very original volumes will always be interesting as memorials of a most 
exceptional society, while regarded simply as tales, they are sparkling, sensa- 
tional, and dramatic, and the originality of their ideas and the quaintness 
of their language give them a most captivating piquancy. The illusfra- 
iions are extremely interesting, and for the curious in such matters have 
a special and particular valueT — Pall Mall Gazette. 

Morley (John).— EDMUND BURKE, a Historical Study. By 
John Morley, B.A. Oxon. Crown 8vo. 7.$-. 6d. 
" The style is terse and incisive, and brilliant with epigram arid point. 
It contains pithy aphoristic sentences which Burke himself would not have 
disowned. Its sustained power of reasoning, its -wide s-weep of observation 
and reflection, its elevated ethical and social tone, stamp it as a work t>f 
high excellence.^'' — Saturday Review. "A model of compact conden- 
sation. We have seldom met with a book in -which so much matter was 
compressed into so limited a space.'" — Pall Mall Gazette. " An essay 
fif unusual effort. " — Westminster Review . 



22 MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

Morison.— THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT BERNARD, 
Abbot of Clairvaux. By James Cotter Morison, M. A. Cheaper 
Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 

The Pall Mall Gazette calls this " one of the best contributions in 
our literature towards a vivid, intelligent, and worthy knowledge of 
European interests and thoughts and feelings during the twelfth century. 
A delightful and instrtictive volume, and one of the best products of the 
modern historic spirit.'''' "A work" says the Nonconformist, "of 
great merit and value, dealing most thoroughly with one of the most in- 
teresting characters, and one of the most interesting periods, in the Church 
history of the Middle Ages. Mr. Morison is thoroughly master of his subject, 
and writes with great discrimination and fairness, and in a chaste and 
elegant style" The Spectator says it is "not only distinguished by 
research and candour, it has also the great merit of never being dull." 

Napoleon.— THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON I. By P. 
Lanfrey. A Translation with the sanction of the Author. Vols. 
I. and II. 8vo. price I2.y. each. 

The Pall Mall Gazette says it is "one of the most striking 
pieces of historical composition of which France has to boast," and the 
Saturday Review calls it "an excellent translation of a work on every 
ground deserving to be translated. It is tinquestionably and immeasurably 
the best that has been produced. It is in fact the only work to which we- 
can turn for an accurate and trustworthy narrative of that extraordinary 
career. . . . The book is the best and indeed the only trustworthy history 
of Napoleon which has been written." 

Palgrave (Sir F.)— HISTORY OF NORMANDY AND 
OF ENGLAND. By Sir Francis Palgrave, Deputy Keeper 
of Her Majesty's Public Records. Completing the History to the 
Death of William R.ufus. Vols. II. — IV. 2.1s. each. 
Volume I. General Relations of Mediceval Europe — The Carlovingian 
Empire — The Danish Expeditions in the Gauls — And the Establishment 
cf Rollo. Volume II. The Three First Dukes of Normandy ; Rollo, 
Guillaume Longue-Epie, and Richard Sans-Peur — The Carlovingian 
line supplanted by the Capets. Volu?ne III. Richard Sans-Peur — 
Richard Le-Bon — Richard III. — Robert Le Diable — William the Con- 
queror. Volume IV. William Rufus — Accession of Henry Beauclerc. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, & TRAVELS. 23 

It is needless to say anything to recommend this work of a lifetime to all 
students of history ; it is, as the Spectator says, "perhaps the greatest 
single contribution yet ??iade to the authentic annals of this country" and 
li must," says the NONCONFORMIST, "always rank among our standard 
authorities. " 

Palgrave (W. G.) — A NARRATIVE OF A YEAR'S 
JOURNEY THROUGH CENTRAL AND EASTERN 
ARABIA, 1862-3. By William Gifford Palgrave, late of 
the Eighth Regiment Bombay N. I. Sixth Edition. With Maps, 
Plans, and Portrait of Author, engraved on steel by Jeens. Crown 
Svo. 6s. 
" The xvork is a model of what its class shoidd be ; the style restrained, 
the narrative clear, telling us all we wish to knozu of the country and 
people visited, and enough of the author and his feelings to enable us to 
trust ourselves to his guidance in a tract hitherto untrodden, and dangerous 
in more senses than one. . . He has not only written one of the best books 
on the Arabs and one of the best books on Arabia, but he has done so i?i a 
manner that must command the respect no less than the admiration of his 
fellow-countrymen. " — Fortnightly Review. " Considering the extent 
of our previous ignorance, the amount of his achievemetits, and the im- 
portance of his contributions to our knowledge, we cannot say less of him 
than was once said of a far greater discoverer — Mr. Palgrave has indeed 
given a new world to Europe." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

Prichard.— THE ADMINISTRATION OF INDIA. From 

1859 to 1868. The First Ten Years of Administration under the 

Crown. By Iltudus Thomas Prichard, Barrister-at-Law. 

Two Vols. Demy 8vo. With Map. 21s. 

In these volumes the author has aimed to supply a full, impartial, and 

independent account of British India between 1859 and 1 868 — which is 

in many respects the most important epoch in the history of that country 

that the present century has seen. " It has the great merit that it is not 

exclusively devoted, as are too many histories, to military and political 

details, but enters thoroughly into the more important questions of social 

history. We find in these volumes a well-arranged and compendious 

reference to almost all that has been done in India during the last ten 

years ; and the most important official documents and historical pieces are 

well selected and duly set forth." — Scotsman. "It is a work which 

every Englishman in India ought to add to his library. n — Star OF India. 



24 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
Robinson (H. Crabb). — the diary, reminiscences, 

AND CORRESPONDENCE, OF HENRY CRABB ROBIN- 
SON, Barrister-at-Law. Selected and Edited by Thomas 
Sadler, Ph.D. With Portrait. Third and Cheaper Edition. 
Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 16s. 

The Daily News says: " The two books which are most likely to 
■survive change of literary taste, and to charm xvhile instructing generation 
■after generation, are the ' Diary' of Pepys and BoszvelVs ' Life of 
Johnson. ' The day will come when to these many will add the e Diary of 
Henry Crabb Robinson.'' Excellences like those which render the personal 
j-evelations of Pepys and the observations of Bosu>ell such pleasant reading 
abound in this work . ... In it is to be found something to suit every taste 
•and inform every mind. For thegetieral reader it contains much light and 
amusing matter. To the lover of literature it conveys information which 
he will prize highly on account of its accuracy and rarity. The student of 
social lift will gather from it many valuable hints whereon to base 
.theories as to the effects on English society of the progress of civilization. 
For. these and other reasons this ' Diary ' is a work to which a hearty 
welcome. should be accorded." 

Rogers (James E. Thorold). — HISTORICAL GLEAN- 
INGS : A Series of Sketches. Montague, Walpole, Adam Smith, 
Cobbett. By Prof. Rogers. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. Second Series. 
Wiklif, Laud, Wilkes, and Home Tooke. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

Professor Rogers' 1 s object in these sketches, which are in the form of 
Lectures, is to present a set of historical facts, grouped round a principal 
figure. The author has aimed to state the social facts of the time in 
which the individual whose history is handled took part in public business. 
It is from sketches like these of the great men who took a prominent 
and influential part in the affairs of their time that a clear conception of 
the social and economical condition of our ancestors can be obtained. 
History learned in this way is both instructive and agreeable. " His Essays, " 
the Pall Mall Gazette says, " are full of interest, pregnant, thoughtful 
and readable." " They rank far above the average of similar perfor- 
mances," says the Westminster Review. 

Raphael.— RAPHAEL OF URBINO AND HIS FATHER 
GIOVANNI SANTI. By J. D. Passavant, formerly Director 
of the Museum at Frankfort. With Twenty Permanent Photo- 
graphs. Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound. 31J. 6d. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &> TRAVELS. 25 

To the enlarged French edition of Passavanl's Life of Raphael, that 
painter's admirers have turned 'whenever they have sought information, 
and it will doubtless remain for many years the best book of reference on 
-all questions pertaining to the great painter. The present work consists 
of a translation of those parts of Passavanl's volumes which are most 
likely to interest the general reader. Besides a complete life of Raphael, it 
contains the valuable descriptions of all his known paintings, and the 
Chronological Index, -which is of so much service to amateurs who wish to 
study the progressive character of his works. The Illustrations by 
Woodbury 's new permanent process of photography, are taken from the 
fintst engravings that could be procured, and have been chosen with the 
intention of giving examples of Raphael's various styles of painting. The 
Saturday Review says of them, " We have seen not a few elegant 
specimens of Air. Woodbury s new process, but we have seen none that 
tqual these." 

Somers (Robert).— the SOUTHERN STATES SINCE 
THE AVAR. By Rouert Somers. With Map. 8vo. 9s. 

This work is the 1 esult of inquiries made by theazcthor of all authorities 
competent to afford him information, and of his own observation during a 
lengthened sojourn in the Southern States, to which writers on America so 
seldom direct their steps. The author' s object is to give some account of the 
condition of the Southern States under the new social and political system 
introduced by the civil war. He has here collected such notes of the progress 
of their cotton plantations, of the state of their labouring population and of 
Jheir industrial enterprises, as may help the reader to a safe opinion of 
their means and prospects of development. He also gives such information 
■ of their natural resources, railways, and other public works, as may 
tend to show to what extent they are fitted to become a profitable field oj 
enlarged immigration, settlement, and foreign trade. The volume contains 
many valuable and reliable details as to the condition of the A'egro popula- 
tion, the state of Education and Religion, of Cotton, Sugar, and Tobacce 
Cultivation, of Agriculture generally, of Coal and Iron Mining, Manu- 
factures, Trade, Means of locomotion, and the condition of Towns and op 
Society. A large map of the Southern States by Messrs. W. and A. K. 
johuston is appended, which shows with great clearness the Cotton, Coal, 
and Iron districts, the railways completed and projected, the State boundaries, 
■and other important details. "Pull of interesting and valuable in forma- 
tion.^ — Saturday Review. 



26 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 
Smith (Professor Goldwin). — THREE ENGLISH 

STATESMEN. See p. 43 of this Catalogue. 

Tacitus. — THE HISTORY OF TACITUS, translated into 

English. By A. J. Church, M.A. and W. J. Brodribb, M.A. 

With a Map and Notes. New and Cheaper Edition, revised, 

crown 8vo. 6s. 

The translators have endeavoured to adhere as closely to the original as 

was thought consistent with a proper observance of English idiom. At 

the same time it has been their ai?n to reproduce the precise expressions of 

the author. This work is characterised by the SPECTATOR as u a scholarly 

and faithful translation." Several improvements have been made in this 

Edition, and the Notes have been enlarged, with the view of rendering the 

work more intelligible and useful to the general reader. 

THE AGRICOLA AND GERMANIA. Translated into English by 
A. J. Church, M.A. and W. J. Brodribb, M.A. With Maps 
and Notes. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

The translators have sought to produce such a version as may satisfy 
scholars who demand a faithful rendering of the original, and English 
readers who ore offended by the baldness and frigidity which commonly 
disfigitre translations. The treatises are accompanied by Introductions, 
Notes, Mips, and a chronological Su??imary. The Athenaeum says of 
this work that it is " a version at once readable and exact, which may be 
perused with pleasure by all, and consulted with advantage by the classical 
student;'''' and the Pall Mall Gazette says," What the editors have 
attempted to do^ it is not, we think probable, that any living scholars could 
have done letter." 

Taylor (Rev. Isaac). — WORDS and places. See 

p. 51 of this Catalogue. 

Thomas. — THE LIFE OF JOHN THOMAS, Surgeon of the 
"Earl of Oxford" East Indiaman, and First Baptist Missionary to 
Bengal. By C. B. Lewis, Baptist Missionary. 8vo. \os. 6d. 

This biography, founded on the most trustworthy materials attainable, 
will be found interesting, not only to all who take an interest in mission 
work and /he spread of Christianity, but to all who care to read the life of 
an earnest man striving to benefit others. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &> TRAVEIS. 27 

Trench (Archbishop).— For other Works by the same Author, 
see Theological and Belles Lettres Catalogues, and p. 51 
of this Catalogue. 

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY, and other Lectures 
on the Thirty Years' War. By R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., 
Archbishop of Dublin. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 
Fcap. 8vo. \s. 

The lectures contained in this volume form rather a nrdj book than a 
nezv edition, for o>t the two lectures published by the Author several years 
ago, so many changes and additions have been made, as to make the work 
virtually a new one. Besides three lectures of the career of Gnstavus in 
Germany and during the Thirty Years' War, there are other two, one 
on " Germany during the Thirty Years' 1 War," a?id another on Germany 
after that War. The work will be found not only interesting and in- 
stitutive in itself, but will be found to have some bearing on events con- 
nected with the recent European War. 

Trench (Mrs. R.)— remains OF THE late MRS. 

RICHARD TRENCH. Being Selections from her Journals, 
Letters, and other Papers. Edited by Archbishop Trench. 
New and Cheaper Issue, with Portrait. 8vo. 6s. 
Contains Notices and Anecdotes illustrating the social life of the period 

— extending over a quarter of a century (1799 — 1827). 7/ includes also 

Poems and other miscellaneous pieces by Mrs. Trench. 

Wallace. — Works by Alfred Russel Wallace. For other 
Works by same Author, see Scientific Catalogue. 
Dr. Hooker, in his address to the British Association, spoke thus of the 
author : — " Of Mr. Wallace and his many contributions to philosophical 
biology it is not easy to speak without enthusiasm ; for, putting aside their 
great merits, he, throughout his writings, with a modesty as rare as I 
believe it to be unconscious, forgets his own tinquestioned claim to the honour 
of having originated, independently of Mr. Darzuin, the theories which 
he so ably defends. ." 

A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON AND 
RIO NEGRO, with an Account of the Native Tribes, and Obser- 
vations on the Climate, Geology, and Natural History of the 
Amazon Valley. With a Map and Illustrations. Svo. 12s. 



28 MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

Wallace (A. R.)— continued. 

Mr. Wallace is acknowledged as one of the first of modern travellers 
and naturalists. This, his earliest zvork, will be found to possess many 
charms for the general reader, and to be full of interest to the student of 
natural history. 

THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO : the Land of the Orang Utan 
and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel with Studies 
of Man and Nature. With Maps and Illustrations. Third and 
Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 

' ' The result is a vivid picttcre of tropical life, which may be read with 
unflagging interest, and a sufficient account of his scientific conclusions to 
stimulate our appetite without wearying us by detail. In short, we may 
safely say that we have never read a more agreeable book of its kind." — 
Saturday Review. "His descriptions of scenery, of the people and 
their manners and customs, enlivened by occasional amusing anecdotes, 
constitute the most interesting reading we have taken up for some time." — 
Standard. 

Ward (Professor).— THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA IN THE 
THIRTY YEARS' WAR. Two Lectures, with Notes and Illus- 
trations. By Adolphus W. Ward, M.A., Professor of History 
in Owens College, Manchester. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

These two Lectures wei'e delivered in February, 1869, at the Philosophical 
Institution, Edinburgh, and arenow published zvith Notes and Illustrations. 
4 ' We have never read," says the Saturday Review, " any lectures which 
bear more thoroughly the impress of one who has a true and vigorous grasp 
of the subject in hand." " They are," the SCOTSMAN says, " the fruit of 
much labour and learning, and it would be difficult to compress into a 
hundred passes more information." 

Ward (J.) — EXPERIENCES OF A DIPLOMATIST. Being 
recollections of Germany founded on Diaries kept during the years 
1840— 1870. By John Ward, C.B., late H.M. Minister- 
Resident to the Hanse Towns. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Mr. Ward' 's recollections extend back even to 1830. Prom his official 
position as well as from other circumstances he had many opportunities of 
coming in contact with eminent ?nen of all ranks and all professions on the 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS. 29 

Continent. His book, while it contains much that throws light on the 
history of the long and important period with which it is concerned, is full 
of reminiscences of such men as Arrivabehe, King Leopold, Frederick 
William IV, his Court and Ministers, Humboldt, Bunsen, Raumer, 
Ranke, Grimm, Palmerston, Sir de Lacy Evans, Cobden, Mendelssohn, 
Cardinal Wiseman, Prince Albert, the Prince and Princess of Wales, 
Lord Russell, Bismarck, Mdlle. Tietjens, and ?nany other eminent English- 
men and foreigners. 

Warren. — AN ESSAY ON GREEK FEDERAL COINAGE. 
By the Hon. J. Leicester Warren, M.A. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

The present essay is an attempt to illustrate Mr. Freeman" 1 s Federal 
Government by evidence deduced from the coinage of the times and countries 
therein treated of 

Wedgwood.— JOHN WESLEY AND THE EVANGELICAL 
REACTION of the Eighteenth Century. By Julia Wedgwood. 
Crown 8vo. 8j\ 6d. 

This book is an attempt to delineate the influence of a particular man 
upon his age. The backgrozcnd to the central figure is treated with 
considerable minuteness, the object of representation being not the vicissitude 
of a particular life, but that element in the life 7uhich impressed itself on 
the life of a nation, — an element which cannot be understood tuithout a 
study of aspects of national thought which on a superficial vieza might 
appear wholly zmconnected with it. " In style and intellectual power, in 
breadth of view and clearness of insight, Miss Wedgwood" 1 s book far 
surpasses all rivals? — Athenaeum. " As a short account of the most 
remarkable movement in the eighteenth century, it must fairly be described 
as excellent." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

Wilson. — A MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON, M. D., 
F.R. S.E., Regius Professor of Technology in the University of 
Edinburgh. By his Sister. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

" An exquisite and touching portrait of a rare and beautiful spirit." — 
Guardian. " He more than most men of tvhom we have lately ?rad 
deserved a minute and careful biography, and by such alone could he be 
understood, and become loveable and influential to his fellow-men. Such 
a biography his sister has written, in which letters reach almost to the 



30 MACMILLANS CATALOGUE OF WORKS IN 

extent of a complete autobiography, with all the additional charm of being 
unconsciously such. We revere and admire the heart, and earnestly praise 
the patient tender hand, by which such a ivorthy record of the earth-story 
of one of God? s true angel-men has been constructed for our delight and 
profit y — Nonconformist. 

Wilson (Daniel, LL.D.) — Works by Daniel Wilson, 
LL. D. , Professor of History and English Literature in University 
College, Toronto : — 

PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND. New Edition, 
with numerous Illustrations. Two Vols, demy 8vo. 36^. 

One object aimed at when the book first appeared was to rescue archceological 
research from that limited range to which a too exclusive devotion to classical 
studies had given rise, and, especially in relation to Scotland, to prove how 
greatly more comprehensive and important are its native antiquities than all 
the traces of intruded art. The aim has been to a large extent effectually 
accomplished, and such an impulse given to archcEological research, that in 
this new edition the whole of the work has had to be remodelled. Fully a 
third of it has been entirely re-written ; and the remaining portions have 
undergone so minute a revision as to render it tn many respects a new 
work. The number of pictorial illustrations has been greatly increased, 
and several of the former plates and woodcuts have been re-engraved 
from new drawings. This is diviaed into four Parts. Part I. deals 
with The Primeval or Stone Period : Aboriginal Traces, Sepulchral 
Memorials, Dwellings, and Catacombs, Temples, Weapons, etc. etc. ; 
Part II. The Bronze Period : The Metallurgic Transitio?i, Primitive 
Bronze, Personal Ornaments, Religion, Arts, and Domestic Habits, with 
other topics ; Part III. The Iron Period : The Introduction of Iron, The 
Roman Invasion, Strongholds, etc. etc.; Part IV. The Christian Period : 
Historical Data, the Norrie's Law Relics, Primitive and Mediaval 
Ecclesiology, Ecclesiastical and Miscellaneous Antiquities. The work is 
furnished with an elaborate Index. " One of the most interesting, learned, 
and elegant works we have seen for a long time." — Westminster 
Review. " The interest connected with this beautiful volume is not 
limited to that part of the kingdom to which it is chiefly devoted ; it will be 
consulted with advantage and gratification by all zvho have a regard for 
National Antiquities and for the advancement of scientific Archeology." — 
Archaeological Journal. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, dr» TRAVELS. 31 

Wilson (Daniel, LLr.D.)— continued. 

PREHISTORIC MAN. New Edition, revised and partly re- written, 
with numerous Illustrations. One vol. 8vo. 21s. 

This work, which carries out the principle of the preceding one, but with 
a wider scope, aims to " view Man, as far as possible, unaffected by those 
modifying influences which accompany the development of nations and the 
maturity of a true historic period, in order thereby to ascertain the sources 
from whence such develop??ient and maturity proceed. These researches 
into the origin of civilization have accordingly been pursued under the belief 
which influenced the author in previous inquiries that the investigations 
of the archaeologist, when carried on in an enlightened spirit, are replete 
with interest in relation to some of the most important problems of modern 
science. To reject the aid of archaeology in the progress of science, and 
especially of ethnological science, is to extinguish the la?np of the student 
when most dependent on its borrowed rays." A prolonged residence on 
some of the newest sites of the New World has afforded the author many 
opportunities of investigating the antiquities of the American Aborigines, 
and of bringing to light many facts of high importance in reference to 
primeval man. The changes in the new edition, necessitated by the great 
advance in Archceology since the first, include both reconstruction and 
condensation, along with considerable additions alike in illustration and 
in argument. " We find" says the Athen^UM, "the main idea of his 
treatise to be a pre-eminently scientific one, — namely, by archceological 
records to obtain a definite conception of the origin and nature of man's 
earliest efforts at civilization in the New World, and to endeavour to dis- 
cover, as if by analogy, the necessary conditions, phases, and epochs through 
which man in the prehistoric stage in the Old World also must necessarily 
have passed." The North British Review calls it "a ?nature and 
mellow work of an able man ; free alike from crotchets and front dog- 
matism, and exhibiting on every page the caution and moderation of a 
well-balanced judgment. ' ' 

CHATTERTON : A Biographical Study. By Daniel Wilson, 
LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in University 
College, Toronto. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 

The author here regards Chatterton as a poet, not as a "mere resetter 
and defacer of stolen literary treasures." Reviewed in this light, he has 
found much in the old materials capable of being turned to new account: 



and to these mate?ials research in va-rious directions has enabled him to- 
?nake some additions. He believes that the boy -poet has been misjudged, and 
that the biographies hitherto written of him are not only imperfect but 
untrue. While dealing tenderly, the author has sought to deal truthfully 
with the failings as well as the virtues of the boy : bearing always in 
remembrance, what has been too frequently lost sight of, that he was but a 
boy ; — a boy, and yet a poet of rare power. The EXAMINER thinks this 
"the most complete and the purest biography of the poet which has yet 
appeared." The Literary Churchman calls it "a most charming 
literary biography.'''' 

Yonge (Charlotte M.)— Works by Charlotte M. Yonge, 
Author of "The Heir of Redely fife," &c. &c. :— 

A PARALLEL HISTORY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND • 

consisting of Outlines and Dates. Oblong 410. 3^. 6d. 

This tabular history has been dratvn tip to supply a want felt by many 
teachers of some means of making their pupils realize what events in the 
two countries were contemporary. A skeleton narrative has bee7i constructed 
of the chief transactions in either country, placing a column between for 
what affected both alike, by which means it is hoped that young people may 
be assisted in grasping the mutual relation of events. 

CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to Edward 
II. Extra fcap. 8vo. Second Edition, enlarged. $s. 

A Second Series, THE WARS IN FRANCE. Extra fcap. 
8vo. 5 j. Second Edition. 

The endeavour has not been to chronicle facts, but to put together a series 
of pictures of persons and events, so as to arrest the attention, and give 
some individuality and distinctness to the recollection, by gathei'ing together 
details of the most memorable moments. The ' ' Cameos " are intended as 
a book for young people just beyond the elementary histories of England, 
and able to enter in some degree into the real spirit of events, and to be 
struck with characters and scenes presented in some relief. * ' Instead of 
dry details," says the NONCONFORMIST, "we have living pictures, faithful r 
vivid, and striking. " 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &* TRAVELS. 33 
Young (Julian Charles, M.A.) — a memoir of 

CHARLES MAYNE YOUNG, Tragedian, with Extracts 
from his Son's Journal. By Julian Charles Young, M.A. 
Rector of Ilmington. With portraits and Sketches. New and 
Cheaper Edition. Crown 8yo. Js. 6d. 

Round this memoir of one who held no mean place in public estimation' 
as a tragedian, and who, as a man, by the unobtrusive simplicity and 
moral purity of his private life, won golden opinions from all sorts of men, 
are clustered extracts from the author's Journals, containing many 
curious and interesting reminiscences of his father's a?id his ozun eminent 
and famous co7iiemporaries and acquaintances, somewhat after the manner 
of H. Cr abb Robinson's Diary. Every page will be found fid I both cp 
ejdertainment and instruction. It contains four portraits of the tragedian, 
and a few other curious sketches. " In this budget of anecdotes, fables, ami 
gossip, old and new, relative to Scott, Moore, Chalmers, Coleridge, Words- 
worth, Croker, Mathews, the third and fourth Georges, Bowles, Beck- 
ford, Lockhart, Wellington, Peel, Lotiis Napoleon, D'Orsay, Dickens r 
Thackeray, Louis Blanc, Gibson, Constable, and Stanfield, etc. etc. the 
reader must be hard indeed to please who cannot find aitertainment.'" — 
Pall Mall Gazette, 



POLITICS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL 
ECONOMY, LAW, AND KINDRED 
SUBJECTS. 

Baxter.— NATIONAL INCOME : The United Kingdom. By 
R. Dudley Baxter, M,A. 8vo. 2> s - 6a 7 . 

The present work endeavours to answer systematically such questions 
as the following: — What are the means and aggregate zvages of our 
labouring population ; what are the numbers and aggregate profits 
of the middle classes ; what the revenues of our great proprietors 
and capitalists ; and what the pecuniary strength of the nation to 
bear the burdens annually falling upon us ? What capital in 
land and goods and money is stored up for our subsistence, and for 
carrying out our enterprises ? The author has collected his facts 
from every quarter and tested them in various ways, in order to 
make his statements and deductions valuable and trustworthy. 
Part I. of the work deals with the Classification of the Population 
into — Chap. I. The Income Classes ; Chap. II. The Upper and 
Middle and Manual Labour Classes. Part II. treats of the In- 
come of the United Kingdom, divided into — Chap. III. Upper 
and Middle Incomes ; Chap. IV. Wages of the Manual Labour 
Classes — England and Wales ; Chap. V. Income of Scotland ; 
Chap. VI. Income of Ireland ; Chap. VII. Income of the 
United Kingdom. In the Appendix will be found many valuable 
and carefully compiled tables, illustrating in detail the subjects 
discussed in the text. 

Bernard. — FOUR LECTURES ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED 
WITH DIPLOMACY. By Montague Bernard, M.A., 
Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, Oxford. 
8to. $s. 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC.] 35 



These four Lectures deal with — I. " The Congress of Westphalia ; " 
II. l ' Systems of Policy ; ' ' III. ' ' Diplomacy, Past and Present ; ' ' 
IV. "The Obligations of Treaties." — "Singularly interesting 
lectures, so able, clear, and attractive. " — Spectator. "The 
author of these lectures is full of the knowledge which belongs to 
his subject, and has that power of clear and vigorous expression 
which results- from clear and vigorous thought." — Scotsman. 

Bright (John, M. P.)— SPEECHES ON QUESTIONS OF 
PUBLIC POLICY. By the Right Hon. John Bright, M.P, 
Edited by Professor Thorold Rogers. Author's Popular Edition. 
Globe 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

The speeches which have been selected for publication in these volumes 
possess a value, as examples of the art of public speaking, which n» 
person will be likely to underrate. The speeches have been selected 
with a view of supplying the public with the evidence on which Mr. 
Brig/it's friends assert his right to a place in the front rank of 
English statesmen. They are divided into groups, according 
to their subjects. The editor has naturally given prominence to 
those subjects with which Mr. Bright has been specially identified, 
as, for example, India, America, Ireland, and Parliamentary 
Reform. But nearly every topic of great public interest on which 
Mr. Bright has spoken is represented in these volumes. "Mr. 
Bright' s speeches will always deserve to be studied, as an apprentice- 
ship to popular and parliamentary oratory ; they will form, 
materials for the history of our time, and many brilliant passages, 
perhaps some entire speeches, will really become a part of the living 
literature of England" — Daily News. 

LIBRARY EDITION. Two Vols. 8vo. With Portrait. 25*. 

Cairnes.— ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, THEO- 
RETICAL and APPLIED. By J. E. Cairnes, M.A., Professor 
of Political Economy in University College, London. 8vo. 
1 or. 6d. 

Contents. — Essays towards a Solution of the Gold Question — The 
Australian Episode — The Course of Depreciation — International 
Results — Summary of the Movement — M. Chevalier's Views — Co- 
operation in the Slate Quarries of North Wales— Political Ece- 
Q 2 



36 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 

nomy and Land — Political Economy and Laissez-Faire — M. 
Comte and Political Economy — Bastiat. 

" The production of one of the ablest of living economists." — Athe- 

N.'EUM. 

Christie. — the ballot and corruption and 

EXPENDITURE AT ELECTIONS, a Collection of Essays and 
Addresses of different dates. By W. D. Christie, C.B.. formerly 
Her Majesty's Minister to the Argentine Confederation and to 
Brazil ; Author of " Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury. " Crown 
8vo. 4s. 6d. 

Mr. Christie has been well known far upwards of thirty years as a 
strenuous and able advocate for the Ballot, both in his place in 
Parliament and elsewhere. The papers and speeches here collected 
are six in number, exclusive of the Preface and Dedication to Pro- 
fessor Maurice, which contains many interesting historical details 
concerning the Ballot. ' ' You have thought to greater purpose on 
the means of preventing electoral corruption, and are likely to be of 
more service in passing measures for that highly important end, 
than any other person that I could na?ne." — J. S. Mill, in a 
published letter to the Author, May 1868. 



Clarke. — early roman law. the regal period. 

By E. C. Clarke, M.A., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, 
Lecturer in Law and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge. 

The beginnings of Roman Law are only noticed incidentally by Gains 
or his paraphrasers under Justinian. They are, however, so im- 
portant, that this attempt to set forth what is known or may be 
inferred about them, it is expected, will be found of much value. 
The method adopted by the author has been to furnish in the text 
of each section a continuous account of the subject in hand, ample 
quotations and references being appended in the form of notes. 
Most of the passages cited have been art'ived at by indepetident read- 
ing of the original authority, the few others having becii carefully 
verified. "Mr. Clarke has brought together a great 7nass of valu- 
able matter in an accessible form.'''' — Saturday Review. 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC. 37 

Corfield (Professor W. H.) — a digest of FACTS 

RELATING TO THE TREATMENT AND UTILIZATION 
OF SEWAGE. By W. H. Corfield, M.A., B.A., Professor of 
Hygiene and Public Health at University College, London. 8vo. 
10s. 6d. Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. 

In this edition the author has revised and corrected the entire work, 
and made many important additions. The headings of the eleven 
chapters are as follow: — I. "Early Systems: Midden- Heaps and 
Cesspools. " II. "Filth and Disease— Cause and Effect" III. "Im- 
proved Midden-Pits and Cesspools; Midden- Closets, Pail- Closets, 
etc" IV. "The Dry- Closet Systems." V. " Water- Closets." VI. 
" Snuerage." VII. "Sanitary Aspects 0/ the Water- Carrying 
System." VIII. "Value of Sewage ; Injury to Rivers." IX. 
Town Sezvage; Attempts at Utilization." X. "Filtration and 
Irrigation." XI. "Influence of Sezvage Farming on the Public 
Health." An abridged account of the more recently published 
researches on the subject will be found in the Appendices, %vhile the 
Summary contains a concise statement of the views which the author 
himself has been led to adopt; references have been inserted through- 
out to show from what sources the numerous quotations have been 
derived, and an Index has been added. "Mr. Corfield' s work is 
entitled to rank as a standard authority, no less than a convenient 
handbook, in all matters relating to sewage." — Athenaeum. 

Fawcett. — Works by Henry Fawcett, M.A., M.P., Fellow of 
Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University 
of Cambridge : — 

THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE BRITISH 
LABOURER. Extra fcp. 8vo. $s. 

This work formed a portion of a course of Lectures delivered by the 
author in the University of Cambridge, and he has deemed it 
advisable to retain many of the expositions of the elementary prin- 
ciples of Economic Science. In the Introductory Chapter the 
author points out the scope of the work and shozus the vast import- 
ance of the subject in relation to the conunerckil prosperity and even. 
the national existence of Britain. Then follozo five chapters on 
" The Land Tenure of England '," " Co-operation," " The Causes 
which regulate Wages," " Trade Unions and Strikes," and 



38 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 



Fawcett (H.) — continued. 

li E?nigration." 77ie Examiner calls thetoork "a very scholarly 
exposition 071 some of the most essential questions oj Political 
Economy;'''' and the Nonconformist says "it is written with 
charming freshness, ease, and lucidity." 

. MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Third and Cheaper 
Edition, with Two New Chapters. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

In this treatise no important branch of the subject has been omitted, 
and the author believes that the principles which are therein ex- 
plained will enable the reader to obtain a tolerably complete view of 
the whole science. Mr. Fa7vcett has endeavoured to show how 
intimately Political Econotny is connected with the practical ques- 
tions of life. For the co7tvenience of the ordinary reader^ and 
especially for those who may use the book to prepare themselves for 
examinations, he has prefixed a very detailed summary of Contents, 
zuhich may be regarded as an analysis of the work. The neiv 
edition has been so carefully revised that there is scarcely a 
page in which some improvement has not been introduced. T\e 
Daily News says: " It forms one of the best introductions to the 
principles of the science, and to its practical applications in the 
problems of modern, and especially of English, government and 
society." " The book is written throughout," says the Examiner, 
" with admirable force, clearness, and brevity, every important 
part of the subject being duly considered." 

PAUPERISM': ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES. Crown 8vo. 
is. 6d. 

In its number for March nth, 1871, the Spectator said: il We wish 
Professor Fawcett would devote a little more of his time and energy 
to the practical consideration of that monster problem of Pauperism, 

, for the treatment of which his economic knowledge and popular 
sympathies so eminently ft him." The volume now published may 
be regarded as an answer to the above challenge. The seven 
chapters it comprises discuss the following subjects : — /. " Pauperism 
and the old Poor Law." II. " The present Poor Lata System." 
III. ' ' The Increase of Population. " IV. * ' National Education; 
its Economic and Social Effects." V. "Co-partnership and Co- 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC. 39 



Fawcett (H.) — continued. 

operation." VI. "The English System of Land Tenure." VII. 
"The Inclosure of Co77imonsr The Athen/EUM calls the work 
"a repertory of interesting and well-digested information." 

ESSAYS ON POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECTS. By 
Professor Fawcett, M.P., and Millicent Garrett 
Fawcett. 8vo. ioj. 6d. 

This volume contains fourteen papers, some of which have appeared 
in various journals and periodicals ; others have not before been 
published. They are all on subjects of great importance and uni- 
versal interest, and the names of the two authors are a sufficient 
guarantee that each topic is discussed with full knowledge, great 
ability, clearness, and earnestness. The following are some of the 
titles: — "Modern Socialism ;" " Free Education in its Economic 
Aspects ;" ' ' Pauperism, Charity, and the Poor Law ;" " National 
Debt and National Prosperity;'''' "What can be done for the 
Agricultural Labourers ;" " The Education of Women f " The 
Electoral Disabilities of Women f " The House of Lords." Each 
article is signed with the initials of its author. "In every 
respect a work of note and value. . . They will all repay the 
■berusal of the thinking reader. " — Daily News. 

Fawcett (Mrs.)— political economy for begin- 

NERS. WITH QUESTIONS. By Millicent Garrett 
Fawcett. New Edition. i8mo. is. 6d. 

In this little work are explained as briefly as possible the most im- 
portant principles of Political Economy, in the hope that it will be 
useful to beginners, and perhaps be an assistance to those who are 
desirous of introducing the study of Political Economy to schools. 
In order to adapt the book especially for school use, questions have 
been added at the e?id of each chapter. In the neia edition each 
page has been carefully revised, and at the end of each chapter, 
after the questions, a few little puzzles have been added, which will 
give interest to the book, and teach the learner to think for himself. 
The Daily News calls it "clear, cotnpact, and comprehensive;" 
and the Spectator says, "Mrs. Fawcetfs treatise is perfectly 
suited to its purposed 



40 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 

Freeman (E. A., M.A., D.C.L.)— HISTORY OF 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. See p. 8 of preceding His- 
torical Catalogue. 

Godkin (James).— THE LAND WAR IN IRELAND. A 
History for the Times. By James Godkin, Author of "Ireland 
and her Churches," late Irish Correspondent of the Times. 8vo. 

12S. 

A History of the Irish Land Question. " There is probably no other 
account so compendious and so complete. " — Fortnightly Review. 

Goschen. — REPORTS AND SPEECHES ON LOCAL TAXA- 
TION. By George J. Goschen, M. P. Royal 8 vo. $s. 

Mr. Goschen, from the position he has held and the attention he has 
given to the subject of Local Taxation, is well qualified to deal 
with it. " The volume contains a vast mass of information oj the 
highest value." — Athenaeum. 

Guide tO the Unprotected, in Every Day Matters Re- 
lating to Property and Income. By a Banker's Daughter. 
Third Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. ~$s. 6d. 

A/any widows and single ladies, and all young people, on first 
possessing money of their own, are in want of advice zuhen they 
have commonplace business matters to transact. The author of 
this work writes for those who know nothing. Her aim throughout 
is to avoid all technicalities ; to give plain and practical directions, 
not only as to what ought to be done, but how to do it. "Many an 
unprotected female will bless the head which planned and the hand 
which compiled this admirable little ?7ianual. . . . This book was 
very much wanted, and it could not have been better done." — 
Morning Star. 

Hill.— CHILDREN OF THE STATE. THE TRAINING OF 
JUVENILE PAUPERS. By Florence Hill. Extra fcap. 
Svo. cloth. $s. 

In this work the author discusses the various systems adopted in this 
and other countries in the treatment of pauper children. The 
Birmingham Daily Gazette calls it il a valuable contribution 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC. 41 

to the great and important social question which it so ably and 
thoroughly discusses ; and it must materially aid in producing a 
wise method of dealing with the Children of the Stated 

Historicus.— LETTERS ON SOME QUESTIONS OF 
INTERNATIONAL LAW. Reprinted from the Times, with 
considerable Additions. 8vo. 7-f. 6d. Also, ADDITIONAL 
LETTERS. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

The author's intention in these Letters was to illustrate in a popular 
form clearly -established principles of law, or to refute, as occasion 
required, errors which had obtained a mischievous currency. He 
has endeavoured to establish, by sufficient authority, propositions 
■which have been inconsiderately impugned, and to point out the 
various methods of reasoning which have led some modem writers 
to erroneous conclusions. The volume contains: Letters on "Recog- 
nition;" "On the Perils of Intervention;" " The Rights and 
Duties of Neutral Nations ;" "On the Law of Blockade ;" "On 
Neutral Trade in Contraband of War;" " On Belligerent Viola- 
tion of Neutral Rights ;" "The Foreign Enlistment Act ;" " The 
Right of Search;" extracts from letters on the A fair of the 
Trent ; and a paper on the " Te?'ritoriality of the Merchant 
Vessel." — "It is seldom that the doct)'ines of International law on 
debateable points have been stated zvith more vigour, precision, and 
certainty. " — Saturday Review. 

Jevons. — ■Works by W. Stanley Jevons, M.A., Professor of 
Logic and Political Economy in Owens College, Manchester. (For 
other Works by the same Author, see Educational and Philo- 
sophical Catalogues.) 

THE COAL QUESTION : An Inquiry Concerning the Progress 
of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines. 
Second Edition, revised. 8vo. ioi-. 6d. 

"Lay by day," the author says, "it becomes more evident that the 
coal we happily possess in excellent quality and abundance is the 
mainspring of modern material civilization." Geologists and 
other competent azttho/'ities have of late been hinting that the 
supply of coal is by no means inexhaustible, and as it is of vast 
importance to the country and the world generally to know the real 
state of the case, Professor Jevons in this work has endeavoured to 



42 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 

Jevons (Prof.) — co?itinued. 

solve the questio7i as far as the data at conmiand admit. He 
believes that should the consumption multiply for rather more than 
a century at its p?'esent rate, the average depth of our coal mines 
would be so reduced that we could not long continue our present rate 
of progress. "We have to make the momentous choice," he believes, 
" 'between brief greatness and long-continued prosperity." — ''The 
question of our supply of coal," says the Pall Mall Gazette, ' ' be- 
comes a question obviously of life or death. . . . The whole case is 
stated zuith admirable clearness and cogency. . . . We may regard 
his statements as unanswered and practically established." 

THE THEORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 8vo. gs. 

In this work Professor Jevons endeavours to construct a theory of 
Political Economy on a mathematical or quantitative basis, believing 
that many of the commonly received theot'ies in this science are per- 
niciously erroneous. The author here attempts to treat Econoi7iy 
as the Calculus of Pleasure and Pain, and has sketched out, almost 
irrespective of previous opinions, the form zvhich the science, as it 
seems to hint, must ulti??iately take. The theory consists in apply- 
ing the differential calculus to the familiar notions of Wealth, 
Utility, Value, Demand, Supply, Capital, Interest, Labour, and 
all the other notions belonging to the daily operations of industry. 
As the co77iplete theory of almost every other science involves the use 
of that calculus, so, the author t/wtks, we cannot have a true theory 
of Political Eco7to77iy without its aid. ii Professor yevo7is has done 

; t7ivaluable service by courageously clai77iing political eco7i07ny to be 
strictly a branch of Applied Mathe77iatics." — Westminster 
Review. 

Macdonell.— the land question, with special 

REFERENCE TO ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. By 
John Macdonell, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. ioj-. 6d. 

Martin. — THE STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK: A Statistical 
and Historical Annual of the States of the Civilized World. 
Handbook for Politicians and Merchants for the year 1873. By 
Frederick Martin. Tenth Annual Publication. Revised after 
Official Returns. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC. 43 



The Statesman's Year-Book is the only zuork in the English language 
which furnishes a clear and concise account of the actual condition 
of all the States of Europe, the civilized countries of A?nerica, 
Asia, and Africa, and the British Colonies and Dependencies in 
all parts of the world. The new issue of the work has been revised 
and corrected, on the basis of official reports received direct from the 
heads of the leading Governments of the world, in reply to letters sent 
to them by the Editor. Through the valuable assistance thus given, 
it has been possible to collect an amoicnt of information, political, 
statistical, and commercial, of the latest date, and of unimpeachable 
trustworthiness, such as no publication of the same kind has ever 
been able to furnish. "As indispensable as Bradshaw.'" — TIMES. 

Phillimore.— private law among the Romans, 

from the Pandects. By John George Phillimore, Q.C. 8vo. 
16s. 

The author's belief that some knowledge of the Roman System of 
Municipal Lazv will contribute to improve our ozvu, has induced 
him to prepare the present work. His endeavour has been to select 
those parts of the Digest which would best shozu the grand manner 
in which the Roman jurist dealt with his subject, as well as those 
which most illustrate the principles by which he zuas guided in 
establishing the great lines and propositions of jurisprudence, which 
every lawyer must have frequent occasion to employ. " Mr. Philli- 
more has done good service towards the study of jurisprudence in 
this country by the production of this volume. The work is one 
which should be in the hands of every student." — Athenaeum. 

Smith. — Works by Professor Goldwin Smith : — 
A LETTER TO A WHIG MEMBER OF THE SOUTHERN 
INDEPENDENCE ASSOCIATION. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 
This is a Letter, written in 1864, to a. member of an Association 
formed in this country, the purpose of which was "to lend assistance 
to the Slave-owners of the Southern States in their attempt to effect a 
disruption of the American Commonwealth, and to establish an 
independent Power, having, as they declare, Slavery for its corner- 
stone." Mr. Smith endeavours to show that in doing so they 
would have committed a great folly and a still greater crime. 
Throughout the Letter many points of general and per?nanent 
importance are discussed. 



44 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 

Smith (Prof. G.)— continued. 

THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN: PYM, CROMWELL, 
PITT. A Course of Lectures on the Political History of England. 
Extra fcap. 8vo. New and Cheaper Edition. $s. 

' A work which neither historian nor politician can safely afford to 
neglect." — Saturday Review. " " There are outlines, clearly and 
boldly sketched, if mere outlines, of the three Statesmen who give the 
titles to his lectures, 'which are 'well deserving of study." — Spectator. 

Social Duties Considered with Reference to the 

ORGANIZATION OF EFFORT IN WORKS OF BE- 
NEVOLENCE AND PUBLIC UTILITY. By a Man of 
Business. (William Rathbone.) Fcap. 8vo. 45-. 6d. 

The contents of this valuable little book are — I. " Social Disintegra- 
tion." II. "Our Charities — Done and Vndotie." III. "Organiza- 
tion and Individual Benruoleitce — their Achieve?nents and Short- 
comings." IV. " Organization and Individualism — their Co- 
operation Indispensable." V. "Instances and Experiments. " VI. 
" The Sphere of Government." "Conclusion." The views urged 
are no sentwiental theories, but have grown out of the practical ex- 
perience acquired in actual work. ' 'Mr. Rathbone' 's earnest and 
large-hearted little book will help to generate both a larger and wiser 
charity." — British Quarterly. 

Stephen (C. E.)— the service of the poor; 

Being an Inquiry into the Reasons for and against the Establish- 
ment of Religious Sisterhoods for Charitable Purposes. By 
Caroline Emilia Stephen. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 

Miss Stephen defines Religious Sisterhoods as "associations, the 
oj-ganization of xvhich is based upon the assumption that works of 
charity are either acts of worship in thejnselves, or ?)ieans to an end, 
that end being the spiritual welfare of the objects or the performers 
of those works." Arguing from that point of view, she devotes the 
first part of her volume to a brief histoiy of religious associations, 
taking as specimens — /. The Deaconesses of the Primitive Church. 
II The Beguines. III. The Third Order of S. Francis. IV. The 
Sisters of Charity of S. Vincent de Paul. V. The Deaconesses of 
Modern Germany. In the second part, Miss Stephen attempts to 



WORKS IN POLITICS, ETC. 45 

show what are the real wants met by Sisterhoods, to what extent the 
same wants may be effectually met by the organization of corre- 
sponding institutions on a secular basis, and what are the reasons 
for endeavouring to do so. ' ' The ablest advocate of a better line of 
work in this direction than we have ever seen." — Examiner. 

Stephen (J. F.) — Works by James Fitzjames Stephen, 
Q.C.:- 

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE CRIMINAL LAW OF ENG- 
LAND. 8vo. i8j. 

The object of this work is to give an account of the general scope,, 
tendency, a?id design of an important part of our institutions, 
of which surely none can have a greater moral significance, or be 
more closely connected with broad principles of morality and 
politics, than those by which men rightfully, deliberately, and in 
cold blood, kill, enslave, and otherwise torment their fellow - 
creatures. The author believes it possible to explain the principles 
of such a system in a manner both intelligible and interesting. 
The Contents are — I. " The Province of the Criminal Law.'''' 
II. " Historical Sketch of English Criminal Law." III. "Defi- 
nition of Crime in General." IV. " Classification and Definition 
of Particular Crimes." V. " Criminal Procedure in General." 
VI. "English Criminal Procedure." VII. "The Principles of 
Evidence in Relation to the Criminal Law." VIII. " English 
Pules of Evidence." IX. "English Criminal Legislation.'' 7 
The last 1 50 pages are occupied with the discussion of a number 
of important cases. ii Readers feel in his book the confidence which 
attaches to the writings of a man who has a great practical 
acquaintance with the matter of which he zvrites, and lawyers will 
agree that it fully satisfies the standard of professional accuracy? 
— Saturday Review. "His styleis forcible and 'perspicuous, and 
singularly free from the unnecessary use of professional terms." — 
Spectator. 

THE INDIAN EVIDENCE ACT (I. of 1872). With an Intro- 
duction on the Principles of Judicial Evidence. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 
No one is more competent than Mr. Fitzjames Stephen to write on 
the subject of which he here treats. The Introduction, indeed, 
may be regarded as a short t?-eatise on the theory of evidence, and, 
in connection with the appended Act of 1872, the author hopes it may 



46 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE. 

prove useful to civil servants who are preparing in England for 
their Indian career, and to the law students in Indian Universities. 
The subject is one which reaches far beyond law. The law of 
evidence is nothing unless it is founded upon a rational conception 
of the manner in which truth as to all matters of fact whatever ought 
to be investigated. The four Chapters of the Introduction are — /. 
General Distribution of the Subject ; II. A Statement of the 
Principles of Induction and Deduction, and a Comparison of 
their Application to Scientific and Judicial Inquiries ; III. The 
Theory of Relevancy, with Illustration ; IV. General Observations 
on the Indian Evidence Act. 

Thornton,— ON LABOUR: Its Wrongful Claims and Rightful 
Dues ; Its Actual Present State and Possible Future. By William 
Thomas Thornton, C. B. , Author of " A Plea for Peasant Pro- 
prietors," etc. Second Edition, revised. 8vo. i^s. 

The object of this volume is to endeavour to find "a cure for human 
destitution,' 1 '' the search after which has been the passion and the 
work of the author's life. TJie work is divided into four books, 
and each book into a number of chapters. Book I. " Labour's 
Causes of Discontent.'''' II. "Labour and Capital in Debate." 
III. "Labour and Capital in Antagonism." IV. " Labour and 
Capital in Alliance.'''' All the highly important problems in Social 
And Political Economy connected with Labour and Capital are 
here discussed with knowledge, vigour, and originality, and for a 
noble purpose. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and 
considerably enlarged. " We cannot fail to recognize in his work 
the result of independent thought, high moral aim, and generous 

intrepidity in a noble cause A really valuable contribution. 

The number of facts accutnulated, both histcrrical and statistical, 
make an especially valuable portion of the work" — Westminster 
Review. 



WORKSCONNECTED WITH THE SCIENCE 
OR THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE. 

(For Editions of Greek a?id Latin Classical Authors, Gram- 
mars, and other School works, j^ Educational Catalogue.) 

Abbott.— A SHAKESPERIAN GRAMMAR: An Attempt to 
illustrate some of the Differences between Elizabethan and Modern 
English. By the Rev. E. A. Abbott, M.A., Head Master of the 
City of London School. For the Use of Schools. New and 
Enlarged Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. 

The object of this work is to furnish students of Shakespeare and 
Bacon with a short systematic account of some points of difference 
between Elizabethan Syntax and our own. The demand for a third 
edition within a year of the publication of the first, has encouraged 
the author to endeavour to make the work somewhat more useful, 
and to render it, as far as possible, a complete book of reference for 
all difficulties of Shakesperiau Syntax or Prosody. For this purpose 
the whole of Shakespeare has been re-read, and an attempt has been 
made to include within this edition the explanation of every 
idiomatic difficulty (where the text is not confessedly corrupt) that 
comes within the province of "a grammar as distinct from a glossary. 
The great object being to make a useful book of 'reference for students 
and for classes in schools, several Plays have been indexed so fully, 
that with the aid of a glossary and historical notes the references 
will serve for a complete commentary. "A critical inquiry, con- 
ducted with great skill and knowledge, and zaith all the appliances 
of modern philology." — Pall Mall Gazette. "Valuable not 
only as an aid to the critical study of Shakespeare, but as tending t* 
familiarize the reader with Elizabethan English in general.' 1 ' 1 — 
Athenaeum. 



48 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 

Besant.— studies in early French poetry. By 

Walter Besant, M.A. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. 

A sort of impression rests on most minds that French literature begins 
with the ll siecle de Louis Quatorzef any previous literature being 
for the most part unknown or ignored. Few know anything of the 
enormous literary activity that began in the thirteenth century, was 
carried on by Rulebeuf Marie de France, Gaston de Foix, Thibault 
de Champagne, and Lorris ; was fostered by Charles of Orleans, 
by Margaret of Valois, by Francis the First; that gave a crowd of 
versifiers to France, enriched, strengthened, developed, and fixed the 
French language, and prepared the way for Corneille and for 
Racine. The present work aims to afford information and direction 
touching these early efforts of France in poetical literature. ' l In one 
moderately sized volume he has contrived to introduce us to the very 
best, if not to all of the early French poets.'''' — Athenaeum. 
' 'Industry, the insight of a scholar, and a genuine enthusiasm for 
his subject, combine to make it of very considerable value." — 
Spectator. 

Hales.— LONGER ENGLISH POEMS. With Notes, Philo- 
logical and Explanatory, and an Introduction on the Teaching of 
English. Chiefly for use in Schools. Edited by J W. Hales, 
M.A., late Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cam- 
bridge ; Lecturer in English Literature and Classical Composition 
at King's College School, London; &c. &c. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
4J. 6d. 

This work has been in preparation for some years, and part of it 
has been used as a class-book by the Editor for the last two years. 
It is intended as an aid to the Critical study of English Literature, 
and contains one or more of the larger poems, each complete, of 
prominent English Authors from Spenser to Shelley, including 
Burns' 1 Saturday Night and Twa Dogs. In all cases the ori- 
ginal spelling and the text of the best editions have been given ; only 
in one or two poems has it been deemed necessary to make slight 
omissions and changes, that the ' ' reverence due to boys might be 
well observed.'''' The latter half of the volume is occupied with 
copious notes, critical, etymological, and explanatory, calculated to 
give the learner much insight in the structure and connection of the- 
English tongue. An Index to the notes is appended. 



WORKS ON LANG UA GE. 49 

Helfenstein (James).— a comparative grammar 

OF THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES : Being at the same 
time a Historical Grammar of the English Language, and com- 
prising Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Early English, Modern English, 
Icelandic (Old Norse), Danish, Swedish, Old High German, 
Middle High German, Modern German, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, 
and Dutch. By James Helfenstein, Ph.D. 8vo. i&r. 

This work traces the different stages of development through -which the 
various Teutonic languages have passed, and the laws which have 
regulated their growth. The reader is thus enabled to study the 
relation which these languages bear to one another, and to the Eng- 
lish language in particular, to which special attentiojt is dez'oted 
throughout. In the chapters on Ancient and Middle Teutonic 
languages no grammatical form is omitted the knoivledge of which 
is required for the study of aticient litei'ature, whether Gothic or 
Anglo-Saxon or Early English. To each chapter is prefixed a 
sketch showing tke relation of the Teutonic to the cognate languages , 
Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. Those who have mastered the book 
will be in a position to proceed with intelligence to the more elaborate 
works of Grimm, Bopp, Pott, Schleicher, and others. 

Morris. — HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF ENGLISH ACCI- 
DENCE, comprising Chapters on the History and Development 
of the Language, and on Word-formation. By the Rev. Richard 
Morris, LL.D., Member of the Council of the Philol. Soc, 
Lecturer on English Language and Literature in King's College 
School, Editor of "Specimens of Early English," etc., etc. 
Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 

Dr. Morris has endeavoured to write a work which can be profitably 
used by students and by the upper forms in our public schools. His 
almost tmequalled knowledge of early English Literature renders 
him peculiarly qualified to write a work of this kind ; and English 
1" Grammar, he believes, without a reference to the older forms, must 

appear altogether anomalous, inconsistent, and unintelligible. In 
the writing of this volume, moreover, he has taken advantage of the 
researches into our language made by all the most eminent scholars 
in England, America, and on the Continent. The author shows 
the place of English among the languages of the world, expounds 
clearly and with great niinuteness " Grimm's Law," gives a brief 

D 



50 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 



history of the English language and an account of the various 
dialects, investigates the history and principles of Phonology, 
Orthography, Accent, and Etymology, and devotes several chapters 
to the consideration of the various Parts of Speech, and the final 
one to Derivation and Word-formation. 

Peile (John, M.A.)— an introduction to greek 
AND LATIN ETYMOLOGY. By John Peile, M.A., 
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge, 
formerly Teacher of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge 
New and revised Edition. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

These Philological Lectures are the result of iVotes made during the 
author's reading for some years previous to their publication. These 
Notes wei'e put into the shape of lectures, delivered at Christ's 
College, as one set in the "Intercollegiate" list. They have been 
printed with some additions and modifications, but substantially 
■as they were delivered. "The book may be accepted as a very 
valuable contribution to the science of language." — Saturday 
Review. 

Philology.— THE JOURNAL OF SACRED AND CLAS- 
SICAL PHILOLOGY. Four Vols. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY. New Series. Edited by W. 
G. Clark, M.A., John E. B. Mayor, M.A., and W. Aldis 
Wright, M.A. Nos. I., II., III., and IV. 8vo. 4-r. 6d. each. 
(Half-yearly.) 

Roby (H. J.}— A GRAMMAR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE, 

FROM PLAUTUS TO SUETONIUS. By Henry John 
.. Roby, M»A., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 

Part I. containing: — Book I. Sounds. Book II. Inflexions. 

Book III. Word Formation. Appendices. Second Edition. 

Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. 

This work is the result of an independent and careful study of the 
writers of the strictly Classical period, the period embraced between 
the time of Plautus and that of Suetonius. The author's aim has 
been to give the facts of the language in as few words as possible. It 
will he found that the arrangement of the book and the treatment of 
. the various divisions differ in many respects from those offirtvious 



WORKS ON LANGUAGE. 51 

grammars. Mr. Roby has given special prominence to the treat' 
ment of Sounds and Word-formation ; and in the First Book he has 
done much totvards settling a discussion which is at present largely 
engaging the attention of scholars, viz., the Pronunciation of the 
Classical languages. In the full Appendices will be found various 
valuable details still further illustrating the subjects discussed in the 
text. The author's reputation as a scholar and critic is already 
well known, and the publishers are encouraged to believe that his 
present %vork will take its place as perhaps the most original, exhaus- 
tive, and scientific grammar of the Latin language that has ev«r 
issued from the British press. "The book is ma?'ked by the clear 
and practical insight of a master in his art. It is a book which 
would do honour to any country" — ATHENAEUM. "Brings before 
the student in a methodical form the best results of modern philology 
bearing on the Latin language." — SCOTSMAN. 

Taylor (Rev. Isaac). — words and places ; or, 

Etymological Illustrations of History, Ethnology, and Geography. 
By the Rev. Isaac Taylor. Third Edition, revised and com- 
pressed. With Maps. Globe 8vo. 6s. 

"In this edition the work has been recast with the intention of fitting it 
for the use of students and general readers, rather than, as 
before, to appeal to the judgment of philologers. The book 
has already been adopted by many teachers, and is prescribed 
as a text-book hi the Cambridge Higher Examinations for 
Women: and it is hoped that the reduced size and price, and 
the other changes now introduced, may make it more generally 
useful than heretofore for Educational purposes. 

Trench. — Works by R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Archbishop of 
Dublin. (For other Works by the same Author, see Theological 
Catalogue.) 

Archbishop Trench has done much to spread an interest in the history 
of our English tongue. He is acknowledged to possess an un- 
common power of presenting, in a clear, instructive, and interesting 
manner, the fruit of his own extensive research, as . well as the 
results of the labours of other scientific and historical students 
of language ; while, as the Athenaeum says, " his sober judgment 
and sound sense are barriers against the misleading influence of 
arbitrary hypotheses.'''' 



52 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE OF 



Trench (R. C.) — continued. 

SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. New Edition, 
enlarged. 8vo. cloth. 12s. 

The study 0/ synonyms in any language is valuable as a discipline for 
training the mind to close and accurate habits of thought; more 
especially is this the case in Greek — "a language spoken by a people oj 
the finest and subtlest intellect; zvho saw distinctions zvhere others saw 
none; who divided out to different words what others often were 
content to huddle confusedly under a common term.'''' This work is 
recognized as a valuable companion to every student of the Neto 
Testament in the original. This, the Seventh Edition, has been 
carefidly revised, and a considerable number of new synonyms added. 
Appended is an Index to the synonyms, and an Index to many other 
zvords alluded to or explained throughout the work. "He is," the 
Athen^um says, "a guide in this department of knowledge to 
whom his readers may entrust themselves with confidence." 

ON THE STUDY OF WORDS. Lectures Addressed (originally) 
to the Pupils at the Diocesan Training School, Winchester. 
Fourteenth Edition, revised and enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 4*. 6d. 

This, it is believed, was probably the first work which dreiv general 
attention in this country to the importance and interest of the 
critical and historical study of English. It still retains its place as 
one of the most successful if not the only exponent of those aspects 
of Words of whicJir it treats. The subjects of the several Lectures 
are— I. "Introductory" II. "On the Toetry of Words" III. 
"On the Morality of Words." IV. "On the History of Words" 
V. "On the Rise of Nezv Words." VI. "On the Distinction of 
Words." VII. "The Schoolmasters Use of Words." 



ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT. Seventh Edition, revised 
and improved. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. 

This is a series of eight Lectures, in the first of which Archbishop 
Trench considers the English language as it notv is, decomposes some 
specimens of it, a nd thus discovers of what elements it is compact. In 
the second lecture he considers what the language might have been 



WORKS ON LANGUAGE. 53 

Trench (R. C.) — continued. 

if the Norman Conquest had never taken place. In the following 
six Lectures he institutes from various points of view a comparison 
between the present language and the past, points out gains which it 
has made, losses which it has endured, and generally calls attention 
to some of the. more important changes through which it has passed, 
or is at present passing. 

A SELECT GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH WORDS USED 
FORMERLY IN SENSES DIFFERENT FROM THEIR 
PRESENT. Fourth Edition, Enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 

This alphabetically arranged Glossary contains many of the most 
important of those English words which in the course of time have 
gradually changed their meanings. The author's object is to point 
out some of these changes, to suggest how many more there may be, 
to show hotu slight and subtle, while, yet most real, these changes 
have often been, to trace here and there the progressive steps by 
which the old meaning has been put off and the new put on — the 
exact road which a word has travelled. The author thus hopes t o 
render some assistance to those who regard this as a serviceable dis- 
cipline in the training of their own minds or the minds of others. 
Although the book is i?t the form of a Glossary, it will be found as 
interesting as a series of brief well-told biographies. 

ON SOME DEFICIENCIES IN OUR ENGLISH DICTION- 
ARIES : Being the substance of Two Papers read before the 
Philological Society. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 
8vo. 2 s ' 

Wood — Works by H. T. W. Wood, B.A., Clare College, 
Cambridge : — 

THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH AND 
FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. Crown 8vo. 2s.. 6d. 

CHANGES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BETWEEN 
THE PUBLICATION OF WICLIF'S BIBLE AND THAT 
OF THE AUTHORIZED VERSION ; a.d. 1400 to a.d. 1600. 
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 



54 MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE. 



This Essay gained the Le Bas Prize for the year 1870. Besides the 
Introductory Section explaning the aim and scope of the Essay, 
there are other three Sections and three Appendices. Section II. 
treats of '" English before Chaucer." III. " Chaucer to Caxton." 
IV. " Erom Caxton to the Authorized Version." — Appendix: I. 
"■Table of English Literature" a.d. 1300 — a.d. 161 i. //• 
li Early English Bible ." III. " Inflectional Changes of 'the Verb." 
This will be found a most valuable help in the study of our language 
during the period embraced in the Essay. " As we go with him," 
the Athenaeum says, "we learn something new at eveiy step. " 

Yonge.— HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN NAMES. By Char- 
lotte M. Yonge, Author of ''The Heir of Redclyffe." Two 
Vols. Crown 8vo. 1/. is. 

Miss Yonge 's work is acknowledged to be the authority on the interest- 
ing subject of which it treats. Until she wrote on the subject, the 
history of names — especially Christian Names as distinguished from 
Surnames — had been but little examined ; nor why one should be 
popular and another forgotten — why one should flourish through- 
out Europe, another in one country alone, another around some 
petty district. In each case she has tried to find out whence the 
name came, whether it had a patron, and whether the patron took 
it from the myths or heroes of his own country, or from the mean- 
ing of the words. She has then tried to classify the names, as to 
treat them merely alphabetically would destroy all their interest and 
connection. They are classified first by language, beginning with 
Hebrew and coining down through Greek and Latin to Celtic, 
Teutonic, Slavonic, and other sources, ancient and modem ; then 
by meaning or spirit. "An almost exhaustive treatment of the 
subject . . . The painstaking toil of a thoughtful and cultured mind 
on a most interesting theme." — London Quarterly. 



R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, LONDON. 



3477 
X274 






** ,*« 















,o 



%** :& 



V> <V 













%, <? 



,0 






^ <v 




v<- 



;> ^ 






,, *<p 



-tf 



- 



.0 o 



>..v 



'</> V 



^ 












V* % ^ 



.\ v 






4 
-p 



,0 a 









,<y 



% * 






^ 









^% 





w 








\ ° 



",% 







^ ' 

















0\ ' 



^ V* 



^ x 



V 



% c? 






^ "T'w 



xOO 















^ ^ 






v ^. 






^ 



'«£> ,<^ 






^ ^ 









